What King Is This?

The days are getting shorter, and it’s like somebody flipped a switch. The colors around us are changing from jack-o-lantern orange and the yellow of corn and straw to the richer tones of cranberry red, spruce green, and candlelight gold. It’s been only days since we celebrated the return of the pumpkin spice latte at the coffee shop, and now allspice, nutmeg, and cinnamon are dancing through recipes for cider and pie, sweet potato casserole and ginger bread.

The days are getting shorter, and we start dreaming in the middle of the afternoon about being at home, cozy and warm, with the people we love and the music we have known forever. We want to send cards and wrap presents and deck the halls with boughs of holly.

We look forward to the long night when shepherds hear the angels sing and say, “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” We look forward to finding the child lying in the manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths. We look forward to wondering out loud, “What child is this who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping? Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, while shepherds watch are keeping?” And we look forward to singing with hushed wonder, “This, this is Christ the King…”[1]

What a joy it is to look at a little child and hear the words of promise of a savior and to sing that this, this is the one, Christ the King, God’s Messiah. Today, though, the gospel reading takes us to the last day of this child’s life, to a different place, a place called The Skull, a place of torture, torment and death. It is a place without color, a place of sour wine and bitter tears and frightening darkness.

What king is this? On the night of his birth, the angels sang and we were glad to join their heavenly anthems. But on the day of his death human voices come together in a cacophony of scorn, “Hey, Savior, show us some salvation!”

“He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God!” the leaders are laughing.

“If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” the soldiers keep deriding him. They represent the real power in the land, and their contempt is big enough to ridicule this “king” along with everyone else. The cross is the unmistakable sign of Rome’s sovereignty, and the troops feel strong in their open disdain for a weak, conquered people and its “savior.”

One of the two men, sentenced to death and hanged there like him, joins them in taunting Jesus, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

The whole scene looks like an obscene joke, and the punchline is written on a sign and nailed over Jesus’ head, “This is the King of the Jews.” What king is this, so impotent he can’t save himself?

When Jesus was about to begin his work of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, he spent time in the wilderness. It was a time of learning to trust and follow the path of God rather than any other path. After forty days of fasting, Jesus was famished, and the devil said, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Not an unreasonable proposal: save yourself from the pangs of hunger and weakness. But Jesus refused.

Then the devil promised him all the kingdoms of the world, but Jesus refused. Finally the devil took him to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; God’s angels will protect you.”[2] If you are the Son of God, if you are God’s Messiah, if you are the agent of God’s salvation – save yourself.

The devil’s rhetoric is amplified multiple times around the cross: show your power, do something, come down, save yourself. But Jesus refuses. What king is this?

Amid the abuse and the clamor he remains silent. Once he opens his lips and he prays, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” Forgive whom – the soldiers who, as always, were only following orders? Forgive those who gave the orders? Forgive the leaders who always act with the best interest of the state or the temple or the church or the nation in mind? Forgive those who put their trust in power? Forgive all of us who are trapped in sinful modes of relating, thinking, speaking, and acting?

For a moment, the waves of ridicule and abuse subside, and we hear the king who lives up to nobody’s expectations pray for forgiveness. We have been in his company long enough to know that he wouldn’t ask for armies of angels to sweep in and smite the enemy. We have been in his company long enough to know that his kingdom is not a new and improved version of the kingdoms of the world.

In the gospel of Luke, only three characters say the word kingdom. The first is an angel. Gabriel comes to Mary and says, “You will bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will reign forever and of his kingdom there will be no end.”[3]

And after the angel, it is Jesus who says the word kingdom again and again. And he doesn’t just say it, he embodies it with every healing gesture and touch, with every teaching and every meal, with every refusal to follow a different path.

The third character who says the word is a dying convict who, at the end of Jesus’s earthly life and work, chides, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

And the other man rebukes him, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” He reminds us that Jesus is innocent in every respect, condemned solely for disturbing and disrupting the orderliness of religion and custom and law.

And then the man turns to Jesus and says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He speaks of a kingdom hidden in the improbable future of a crucified man, and in this kingdom he wants to be remembered. He doesn’t know any better than you and I what it might look like, this kingdom. All he knows is that it is Jesus’ kingdom. All he knows is what we all see in the life and ministry of Jesus: the end of exclusion and condemnation, and the reign of mercy – and he trusts that this mercy has no end. All he knows is what we all see in Jesus’ final refusal to save himself or shock the enemy into submission: the end of the ancient cycle of violence and vengeance, and the reign of forgiveness – and he trusts that this forgiveness has no end. He entrusts himself to the reality to which mercy and forgiveness point, the reality which Jesus embodied and proclaimed, and in the face of death this man finds himself closer to life than he has ever been.

As requests go, “Remember me…” is modest; but Jesus responds with royal extravagance.  “Today, he says to him, “today you will be with me in Paradise.” Like one of the kings in his parables, Jesus generously lavishes gifts on the humble petitioner, granting him life in the lush garden of God.

This kingdom is not a new and improved version of the kingdoms of the world. It is a new way of relating, thinking, speaking, and acting in the name of Jesus. Jesus turns our royal ideology on its head. The reign of Christ the King is an assault on any earthly royal aspiration, any ambition for dominance, and you and I live in this reign when we shed the flawed perceptions of power evident in the scoffing leaders, the mocking soldiers, and the scornful criminal; we live in the kingdom when we turn to Jesus.

Robert Capon wrote in a meditation on the American Messiah,

We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but because he (…) claimed to be God and then failed to come up to our standards for assessing the claim. It’s not that we weren’t looking for the Messiah; it’s just that he wasn’t what we were looking for.[4]

He wasn’t what we were looking for. We speak of Jesus as God’s Messiah and we sing of the child in the manger and the man on the cross, “this, this is Christ the King;” and we always wrestle with the fact that it is Jesus who gives meaning to these titles, and not the other way round: it is not our understanding of these titles that determine the meaning of Jesus.

Many say, and with good reason, that we shouldn’t continue to call Jesus “the King,” because our imagination is already overstuffed with white men sitting on thrones or riding on white horses. Today, though, the gospel didn’t take us to the royal throne halls of our disneyfied imagination but to that place called The Skull, and there we heard two prayers: Jesus praying for us, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing;” and an unnamed criminal, inviting us to pray with him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

The relationship that gives rise to these prayers is the reign of Christ, and everything about it is defined not by the poverty of our hearts, but by the riches of God’s mercy. The reign of Christ the King gets its color and fragrance, its melody and story from the love of God in Jesus. Everything else are our attempts to find words for that love.

The days are getting shorter, and we are dreaming dreams about the whole world being at home with God and God being at home in the world. May it be so soon, very soon.

 

[1] What Child Is This, Chalice Hymnal #162, words by William C. Dix

[2] See Luke 4:1-13

[3] See Luke 2:30-33

[4] Robert F. Capon, Hunting the Divine Fox (New York: Seabury Press, 1974) p. 91



Holiday hopes

Clarks Summit is a small town in Pennsylvania. It’s very much like countless other small towns in the country, and like many of them, it has an annual holiday parade in November.

A few years ago, the merchants association invited the pastor of the Church on the Hill to give the invocation at the beginning of the parade. The high school band was lined up and ready to march down Main Street. Miss Snowflake was already waving to everybody from her convertible. And the pastor stood with the other dignitaries, next to a 4-ft. plastic red-nosed reindeer, a 5-ft. plastic turkey, and a 6-ft. inflatable snow man.

This was his first parade prayer, and he didn’t know what exactly was expected of him. So he turned to the young woman who had sent him the email invitation and said, “Rosemary, what should I pray for?”

She seemed surprised by his question, but replied with holiday cheer, “How about if you pray for a successful shopping season – you know, encourage people to support local businesses?”

The pastor was stunned: the merchants wanted him to bless the buying and selling of merchandise. What did he expect? That they wanted him to pray for the healing of creation and peace on earth?

At the appointed time, he could only mumble the words, “God, thank you for bringing us together. Make us mindful of the poor who can’t afford to shop here or anywhere. Amen.”[1]

After this brief invocation, the other dignitaries looked a little puzzled, and the president of the merchants association leaned over to the mayor and said, “Next year, remind me not to invite a preacher to the parade.”

That’s probably a good idea, because a preacher in November reaches for a hope that stretches far beyond the upcoming shopping season.

A preacher in November spends much time with Jesus in the temple, thinking and praying about the days when not one stone will be left upon another and all will be thrown down, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; great earthquakes, famines and plagues; dreadful portents – what word is the preacher supposed to bring from there to the holiday parade?

A preacher in November spends much time with Isaiah and the glorious vision of new heavens and a new earth:

No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in the city or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime. No more shall they build and another inhabit; or plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

The vision is for Clarks Summit and Jerusalem and Nashville and every small town and city and hamlet under the sun, but it is too big for a little parade. The merchant association looks at the next few weeks of sales and hopes for better figures than last year, but the preacher can’t help but pray for a better hope.

As the church year draws to a close, Isaiah takes us back to the beginning of our story in God’s garden, with its hopes for creation and humankind, and he takes us back to the beginning of the dashing of those hopes: Adam and Eve, the tree and the serpent, the lies and the curses, the fury that turns Cain and Abel from brothers into killer and victim – and now, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth,” says the Lord. Men and women shall no longer labor in vain or bear children for calamity or watch anger and violence spread from generation to generation. They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord. All that has prevented God’s shalom from flourishing  in the garden and in the ancient house of human history shall be overcome by the faithfulness and power of God, maker of heaven and earth.

Some of the things the prophet declared seem utterly doable. Putting an end to infant mortality? If only Isaiah could see the miracles that happen in the neonatal ICU every day. Prolonging human life beyond one hundred years? Life expectancy today is more than 80 years in over twenty-five countries, and close to 90 in Monaco on the French riviera.[2]

What was a dream for most of human history is quickly becoming a realistic goal – but wolf and lamb together, that’s just a little over the top, isn’t it? A world without violence, without terror and fear – that’s just a bit much, isn’t it? The sceptic mind prefers the spreadsheets of economic forecasters over the poetry of prophets.

Only the young possess the simplicity
To accept a truth transcending rote and rule,
So that, like star-led shepherds, children see
The fact of miracle.
But logic, the sophist, clouds the maturing life,
Caution replaces the fearless face of youth,
Till the skeptic mind prefers a plausible lie
To a fantastic truth. [3]

We live with a lot of plausible lies, I’m afraid. We make do with the realities of the old creation because the fantastic truth of the new is, well, just a little over the top. We make do with hopes for better holiday season sales because the hope of God’s peace spreading throughout our broken world is just too big for our little parade.

“Plausible lies are part of the illusions of our culture,” says Peter Gomes, “things that appear to be real, valuable, and permanent, designed to give us pleasure and satisfaction and to help us in the mastery of ourselves and our world.”[4]

Plausible lies are lies because they continue the illusion that life can be mastered and that we are its masters. Plausible lies are plausible because they leave the promises of God out of the equation.

Walter Brueggemann suggests that the vision in Isaiah “is outrageous because the new world of God is beyond our capacity and even beyond our imagination. In our fatigue, our self-sufficiency, and our cynicism,” we remain convinced “that such promises could not happen here.”[5]

What would happen, if we dared to embrace the fantastic truth of God’s vision? We wouldn’t let the plausible lie of shrinking budgets define our life together. We wouldn’t let numbers define possibility, but ask how the possibilities of God might redefine our numbers and our budgets.

We wouldn’t allow our culture to drive us deeper and deeper into isolation and away from God, but rather let God draw us together and into the new heavens and the new earth.

As Christians, we confess that Jesus is the Christ and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world. We find our lives restored and renewed in the fantastic truth of Jesus’ resurrection. God raised him from the dead and that first day was the beginning of the new creation.

Sin had its way with him. Every lie, every injustice, every self-righteous illusion, every hateful word and angry blow – we had our way with him. All that has kept life from flourishing, the webs of evil thoughts, words, and deeds – they had their way with him and he died.

But he rose to reign over all. And where he reigns, violence is past. Where he reigns, those who build houses don’t labor in vain but make enough to live in them. Where he reigns, those who plant and harvest the fields also eat their fruit. Where he reigns, low infant mortality rates and high life expectancy are no longer measures of privilege. Where he reigns, life is restored and renewed in God’s shalom.

As his disciples and citizens of his reign, we learn to unmask the plausible lies we tell one another, and we begin to live by the fantastic truth of God’s faithfulness. We are being called out of the old creation not to withdraw from it, but to become part of its transformation. We participate in the creative struggle for a new community, a new city. In the Gospel, Jesus speaks of endurance in the face of terrifying news, conflict, hatred, and betrayal—and he promises, “not a hair of your head will perish.”[6]

There still is anguish and terror, weeping and premature death, oppression and violence – but the risen Christ is the living witness that those are former things that have been judged and rejected by God, and therefore will not remain. What will remain, is what has begun with the resurrection of Jesus: life in fullness for all. What will remain, is the joy and delight of the new city where God is at home.

We call this Pledge Sunday because today we make our pledges of financial support for a new year of ministry. But Pledge Sunday isn’t about our money, it’s about our heart. We choose today and we choose every day anew, what vision will guide our life: whether it will be the plausible lies of the way things are, or rather the fantastic truth that challenges our imagination with the way things will be.

Our treasure will go where our heart leads. Where will it be? The parade of the merchants association? Or the procession of nations entering the city of God?

 

[1] Based on a story in Lectionary Homiletics Vol. XV, No. 6, p. 4

[2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

[3] G. S. Galbraith, “Fact and Wonder” Christian Science Monitor, Nov 25, 1959, in Peter Gomes, The Good Life: Truths That Last in Times of Need (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2002) p. 116

[4] Ibd.

[5] See Lectionary Homiletics Vol. XV, No. 6, p. 61

[6] See Lk 21:9-10



November song

The year is winding down, and the scripture readings for these Sundays in November gently draw our hearts and minds toward thinking about endings. That’s not a difficult thing to do this time of year when we put the garden to bed for the winter and watch the leaves falling from the trees.

Richard Wilbur wrote a beautiful poem for this season; it is called, “October Maples, Portland.”

The leaves, though little time they have to live,
Were never so unfallen as today,
And seem to yield us through a rustled sieve
The very light from which time fell away.
(…)
It is a light of maples, and will go;
But not before it washes eye and brain
With such a tincture, such a sanguine glow
As cannot fail to leave a lasting stain.[1]

In October, maples like gold ranks of temples flank the dazzled street, and in November, the killing frost arrives at night and throws its cold blanket over everything. And suddenly the glorious light of maples is only a memory.

We don’t think too much about time in the spring when everything around us is beginning, blooming, bursting into life. In the spring, time is the friend that opens the miracle and wonder of life to us – but in the fall we look at life from the other side. In the fall, we are reminded of time as the merciless thief that takes everything, ever eroding, dissolving, burying and forgetting.

Isaac Watts read Psalm 90, and he taught us to sing

Time, like an everrolling stream,
soon bears us all away;
we fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.[2]

Watts wrote a November song, yet this verse wasn’t the final one. The last stanza of his hymn teaches our anxious hearts to trust the power of God in the winter of life when we ask, “What will become of me when I die? Will life simply continue without me? What about my life story, my relationships, my dreams that remained unfulfilled – will they all just fall like leaves and be blown away?”

Some of you were in the room when someone you loved was dying. You remember the deep sense of absence you felt after they breathed their last. The body was there, but the person you knew and loved was not. Your world, your heart, your life had a hole in it the size of your love. The body was there, but you wondered, “Where is he now? Where is she?”

We understand intuitively how in human history and across cultures ideas evolved that describe human beings as consisting of body and soul, with the body returning to the elements at death, and the soul flying into the spirit world. In old pictures, the soul is often shown as a tiny winged human being, a bird, or a butterfly, so that after the death of the body, the soul, no longer weighed down by earthly concerns, could take flight into the freedom of heaven. Many Greek and Roman philosophers even thought of the soul as entrapped in the prison of the body, so that death would come as its liberation.

The ancient Israelites had little use for such ideas. They affirmed the goodness of the body as God’s creation, intricately woven, fearfully and wonderfully made. Human life was enbodied, or it was neither human nor life.

In ancient Israel, a good life meant living to a ripe old age and seeing one’s children grow up and one’s children’s children. A person’s life story wasn’t so much the tale of an individual as it was a story of participating in the life of the family, the tribe, and the covenant community. A man’s name lived on in his children, and family memories of parents and grandparents became tribal narratives about the ancestors.

In Genesis we read of Abraham’s death, “he breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his ancestors.” The story continued with his sons Isaac and Ishmael, and the web of relationships across generations was a source of comfort and hope for the living. For them the crucial question was, “What if a man dies childless? How will his name and memory continue?”

The law of Moses stated,

When brothers reside together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage, and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. Deuteronomy 25:5-6

This family arrangement was to make sure the name and memory of the deceased man continued. It also made sure his property stayed in the family and his widow was protected and taken care of.

The Sadducees in today’s gospel passage used this tradition to make fun of the notion of resurrection. What if there are seven brothers, and each dies without an heir, and each marries the woman in turn? To whom will she belong in the resurrection?

The Sadducees were part of the wealthy aristocracy in Jerusalem. They held leadership positions at the temple, and politically they were pragmatists. Theologically they were strict traditionalists. In contrast to the Pharisees, they accepted only the written Torah, not the oral tradition of interpretation of the law. They rejected newfangled beliefs like the resurrection of the dead, because they couldn’t see a scriptural basis for it in the five books of Moses. They had great fun painting this picture of a woman in the world to come, looking at seven brothers, wondering whose wife she would be.

Perhaps you noticed that women were strangely missing from these deep reflections on life and death and memory. It would appear that they were put on earth for the sole purpose of providing men with sons. It’s men who have names, women have children. Things didn’t look any better in Greek philosophy where women’s status as fully human was in question, since the men weren’t sure if women even had a soul.

Jesus, in his response, surprised these privileged gentlemen by pointing out that the resurrection life is not a mere continuation of life in this age. Those who are considered worthy of a place in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore. There’s no need for marriage arrangements to secure offspring and property and memory. In the resurrection, men as well as women live as children of God, whether they were married or not, whether they had children or not. In the resurrection, they live in relationships no longer distorted by power, but entirely and solely defined by their relationship with God. In the resurrection, the glory of God shines through all things, brighter than the light of maples, and November comes no more.

But you can’t convince Sadducees with visions of beauty and justice. “We can’t find this resurrection in our texts,” they say. And Jesus says, “Moses himself showed it, in the story about the bush.”

The voice of God out of the bush didn’t say, “Many generations ago, I used to be Abraham’s God, and then also Isaac’s and Jacob’s, and now I’d like to be yours.” No, the voice said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” The voice of God doesn’t refer to a past reality that is gone, but to a living relationship that time and death did not tear apart. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive in God.

Now that is a highly imaginative reading of scripture, perhaps even a little too imaginative for some of us, but without an imagination nurtured by Jesus we may never see the new thing God is doing in our midst.

November’s killing frost threw the coldest blanket on Jerusalem, putting an end to Jesus’ life of grace and truth and compassion – and time, like an everrolling stream bore him away, and it was like the light had vanished from the world forever.

You know it wasn’t the Sadducees who started to speak of his resurrection. The women did, Mary Magdalene and the others who had followed him from Galilee. They barely had words to speak about what they had seen and heard, but they spoke. They began to talk about life, embodied life no longer subject to sin, suffering, or death, but glorified and fulfilled. They spoke about this new beginning God had made in the world, a beginning that would not become just another ending, but flow into fulfillment like a river flows to the sea. And soon the disciples didn’t just talk about the new life, they began to live it with boldness and courage, as brothers and sisters of Christ.

There is an exuberance behind this proclamation of new life and new hope that is easier to catch in the spring. But November is the season when we say with Paul, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life ... nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

November is the season when we affirm the faithfulness of God that extends beyond all endings. November is the season when we sing with Isaac Watts that final verse,

O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be thou our God while life shall last,
and our eternal home.

[1] Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems 1943-2004 (Orlando: Harcourt, 2004) p. 274

[2] O God, Our Help in Ages Past, Chalice Hymnal #67



Salvation A to Z

When it comes to naming the ones who have gone before us and who have shaped our faith in significant ways, I usually stay in the neighborhood, as it were, close to home. I name people in my family, or teachers and mentors, men and women whom I have known in person and with whom I have spent time; people whose eyes I remember smiling at me and whose hand I still sometimes feel on my shoulder after all those years.

I never met Habakkuk, though. All I know about the man with the funny name fits on three pages in my Bible. There’s no picture of his face, and there aren’t any stories to at least imagine the outlines of his life. All I know about Habakkuk is a voice I first heard when I was in my twenties. It took that long because in the church Habakkuk doesn’t get the  exposure and name recognition of prophets like Isaiah or Amos. I remember sitting in a large gathering and listening to an old Jewish man who spoke about the audacity of hope (that was long before it became the title of a book). He sat on a stage behind a small table, and looking at us over the rims of his glasses he quoted from the final verses of Habakkuk,

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
y e t   I   w i l l    r e j o i c e   i n   t h e   L o r d;
I will exult in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:17-18

The old man was no fool. He had seen violence and injustice in his lifetime that none of us could imagine. He had known hunger, thirst, pain and loss, he had lived through the darkness of six million Jewish men, women, and children murdered. And there he sat, teaching us the audacity of hope with the authority of his own life and the words of the prophet Habakkuk. “Don’t let circumstance determine the measure of your hope,” he said. “Only God is big enough to sustain your soul when the world gives you little to sing about. Listen to Habakkuk.” And we did.

We were Christians from all corners of Germany, Protestants and Catholics. We were looking at the growing arsenals of nuclear weapons in Europe and around the globe, and we knew that peace had to be more than sitting in fear in the shadow of missiles. We were looking at apartheid in South Africa and military rule in most of South America, and we knew that justice had to be more than the ability of European corporations to continue to do business there without disruptions. We were looking at forests and rivers dying because of acid rain, and we knew that we didn’t want to live as though we had another planet in storage somewhere. We began listening to Habakkuk and we found a brother in the struggle for a different world, a different life:

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. Habakkuk 1:1-4

We found a brother who didn’t switch channels to hear only the news he wanted to hear, but who looked at the mess the world was in and took his questions to God. He didn’t get himself a nice couch and pull the blanket over his ears, no, he got up and took a stand:

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what [the Lord] will say to me, and what [God] will answer concerning my complaint. Habakkuk 2:1

He wanted to see justice and salvation, he had questions about God’s just rule, and he found himself a place where he stationed himself to keep watch. He didn’t turn away, he didn’t withdraw, he paid attention: ears and eyes open, heart and mind open.

The answer concerning his complaint didn’t explain how or why, if God was in charge, the world was in the kind of shape it was in. The answer Habakkuk received was a call to write the vision and to make it plain. The answer he received was a call to be attentive and persistent, for there is still a vision for the appointed time. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay (Habakkuk 2:2-30). Stand at your watchpost in the world gone wrong and put into words every glimmer of hope you can see, every whisper of promise you can hear. Don’t let circumstance determine the measure of your hope, but solely the vision of God’s just reign of peace. Only God is big enough to sustain your soul when the world gives you little to sing about.

The voice of Habakkuk has been with me like a brother for almost thirty years, keeping watch with me.

But why does God who said, “Let there be light” and there was light, why does God not say, “Let there be justice and peace”? If you ask Luke, he’ll tell you that that is exactly what God said in the life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when he passed through Jericho and found Zacchaeus up in a tree. You know how he got there, the wee little man who owned the biggest house in town.

Nobody liked him. They enjoyed blocking his view when Jesus came down the road. It wasn’t hard, he was short, and the streets were already crowded; all they had to do was stand shoulder to shoulder like a wall. Zack wasn’t just a tax collector, he was the chief tax collector who had gotten rich by picking every last penny from their pockets. They knew that it was their hard work that had paid for his house and everything in it.

Zacchaeus couldn’t get through the wall of bodies, but he was determined to see who Jesus was – determined enough to make a fool of himself by running like a child, and, as if that hadn’t been ridiculous enough, climbing a tree. Perhaps he had heard people talking about Jesus, the friend of sinners and tax collectors, and now, sitting in the tree above the crowd, he was wondering if it could be true.

Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” Oh did he ever hurry! He practically fell out of that tree, overjoyed and speechless, happy to welcome the famous rabbi.

The people who had been laughing out loud when they watched Zacchaeus running down the road and climbing the sycamore, now grumbled, “Really? Of all the houses in Jericho it had to be this one? Why did Jesus go to be the guest of a sinner?”

Well, Jesus had been very consistent in accepting those whom everybody else rejected, and we are not nearly as surprised as the people of Jericho were. What surprises us is what happened next: Zacchaeus, the rich crook, committed himself to doing justice. He turned to Jesus and said, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” What had gotten into the little man?

I can see Habakkuk standing at his watchpost on the edge of the scene, taking notes for the vision he is to write. You remember how he cried out to God, the law becomes slack and justice never prevails?

O mercy, justice sure did prevail that day! Half of what he owned Zacchaeus pledged to address the needs of the poor, and he made four-fold restitution for what he had stolen – following the strictest interpretation of the law. Nothing anyone would call slack! Everybody was wondering, “What just happened here?” – and Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Zacchaeus was rich, and the last time Jesus had looked into the eyes of a rich man, he said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

And those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”

Zacchaeus was rich, and in Luke news about the rich is consistently bleak: They are the ones sent away empty when the hungry are filled with good things, they are the ones who have already received their consolation, they are the fools who only know how to build bigger barns, they are the ones feasting with their friends while Lazarus is starving at the door. Woe – then who can be saved?

Habakkuk points to Zacchaeus, “That’s something to sing about, isn’t it?” And it’s not just Zacchaeus’s soul being saved. Salvation changes everything, from the very personal to the political. When Jesus is in the house, the reign of God is present and the world is being made right and whole in acts of justice and compassion.

Jericho was Jesus’ final stop before completing his earthly ministry in Jerusalem. His words to Zacchaeus are like a definition of his entire mission: “The Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

I am reminded of a story at the beginning of Genesis. There, Adam and Eve are hiding themselves from the presence of God among the trees. They are hiding from God in shame and fear because they know that they have broken the trust between them. The story describes God as walking in the garden, looking for them and calling, “Where are you?” It’s a serious game of hide and seek.

Now this may be a bit of a stretch, but it may still be true: we have been hiding among the trees since the days of Adam and Eve, knowing that we are not the people God wants us to be; but God is looking for us. And at the end of his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus finds Zacchaeus in the tree. God is looking for us, Adam to Zacchaeus, A to Z, and finding us. And every time one of us is found, the reign of God comes to us and the world is being made right and whole, and justice prevails.

Now that is something to sing about, isn’t it?

Phil and Max

Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt, and this morning he told it to us. It’s a dangerous story. We hear it and we are inclined to write the Pharisee off as a self-righteous, religious hypocrite, and then we leave this place of prayer with contempt in our hearts – which is not what Jesus has in mind for us. Jesus keeps telling us this story, because he wants us to go home with greater love for God and the people around us.

Two men went up to the temple to pray. Years ago, I named them, Phil and Max. Phil’s a Pharisee and Max a tax collector. Phil’s a good man, and he knows it. He takes his religion seriously. He observes the prayer times diligently, he studies scripture daily, and he gives generously to help the needy. Phil is the kind of dedicated person of which every congregation and every community needs a few. He has taught Sunday school, he has been an Elder for several years, and when you talk to him about giving it doesn’t turn into a sales-job. Phil gets it. He is committed to his congregation, and in addition to his work, he also serves on the boards of several non-profits. It’s people like Phil who hold the community together with their efforts and their example. Phil knows what is right and he does it.

Max’s is a different kind of story. Max collects taxes, and that doesn’t mean he got a degree in accounting and started working for the IRS. Max works for the Romans. He has crossed the line by collaborating with the occupying military power, squeezing the population to maintain the empire and its legions. The Romans created a unique and effective way of collecting taxes through a franchise system. The imperial government sold the function and office of Tax Collector to regional brokers who then employed locals to do the dirty work. The local tax collector was given his financial quota, and nobody really cared how he managed to raise the amount. He set his own rate, and from whatever he was able to collect, he skimmed off his profits. That’s what Max does for a living. You can imagine he doesn’t have many friends. He has betrayed his neighbors by collaborating with the occupation forces, and to make matters worse, he himself profits from their subjugation under pagan rule. Max walks down Main Street, and as soon as people see him, they cross to the other side of the road. Max is a sinner, and he knows it.

So the two went up to the temple to pray, and Phil, standing by himself, thanked God that he was a good man and not like other people. He brought with him two short lists, one telling of the ways in which he went far beyond the call of duty in his religious observance, the other listing some of the people who damaged life in the community with stealing, adultery, and shameless profiteering.

Max, on the other hand, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven. All he said was, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” This man, Max, Jesus said, went down to his home justified rather than the other, Phil. Now that was Jesus’ outside-of-the-story statement; neither Max nor Phil knew anything about the state of their relationship with God according to Jesus. For all we know, Max returned to his life of sin. The next morning he got up and he took money from his neighbors, handed some of it over to the Romans, and put some aside for himself. Max was not a good guy. He was a corrupt crook and he knew it. And Phil was a decent man who, for all we know, returned to his life of religious observance and civic responsibility.

Jesus didn’t tell us this outrageous story so we could walk away whispering, “God, I thank you that I am not like Phil.” This is not a lesson in contempt, but a teaching about our need for mercy.

Phil’s prayer is short, and it is an expression of his relationship with God. It begins beautifully, “God, I thank you,” opening the moment to become a channel for waves of gratitude for all the things God has done. It begins beautifully, but then it quickly turns into the sad report of a spiritually self-sufficient man who didn’t come for mercy but for praise. “God, I thank you that I am not like the rest,” he says, and his contempt for the rest of the people is matched by his pride in his own accomplishments. He assesses himself against the standard of religious law, and he is satisfied. He looks around and compares himself to those who cannot measure up, and he is pleased with the difference. Phil prays with peripheral vision and keen powers of observation.

Max’s prayer is short as well, and it too reflects his relationship with God. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He knows himself. He knows what he has done and what he is capable of doing. Without a sideward glance, his eyes lowered, gazing at his toes, he stands before God. Max is oblivious to all but his own need for God’s mercy, perhaps not even hoping for the mercy of God’s people anymore.

I read about a social worker who works with prostitutes in Chicago. A young woman told her how she got involved in prostitution, how it began. She talked about the drugs and the money, the near-impossibility of walking away, and about living with a permanent sense of shame and guilt.

“Can you believe I hired out my own daughter?” she said, “I can’t, but I did it, and I know I would do it again. Hiring her out I made more in one hour than I would in one night.”

 “I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story,” the social worker wrote, “I had no idea what to say to this woman. At last I asked if she had ever thought about going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. ‘Church?’she said. ‘Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.’” [1]

She had long given up hoping for the mercy of God’s people. Whether we like it or not, we pray with a sideward glance, comparing ourselves to others, finding those whose brokenness seems worse than our own. Well, at least I’m not like her, not like him, not like them – I may have my foibles and failings, but compared to them … Thank you, God. When I pray with a sideward glance, the corners of my own heart remain dark – and I continue to live in illusion and denial.

What Jesus dares us to imagine is a community of mercy. Sin is so pervasive and powerful that even our perceived righteousness can break our relationship with God and with each other; sin isolates us both in our goodness and our badness. Only mercy can teach us to pray, “God, we are all like other people. We are not who you made us to be. Have mercy on us. Take away the burden of our sin.”

Karl Barth was one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century. He taught at the university of Basel in Switzerland, and on Sunday mornings, he frequently went to the prison to preach. There he shared with a small congregation of prisoners and guards the good news of Jesus Christ. He talked about our captivity behind walls thicker than the walls of their prison, behind doors heavier than the doors of their cells. He talked about the power of sin to fragment and separate and isolate us from God, and then he told them the story of God’s grace. The story of a love that will not let us go. The story of a mercy that breaks the walls and kicks down the doors.

“We are saved by grace. That means that we did not deserve to be saved. What we deserve would be quite different. No one can be proud of being saved. Each one can only fold [their] hands in great lowliness of heart and be thankful like a child. Consequently, we shall never possess salvation as our property. We may only receive it as a gift over and over again with hands outstretched.” [2]

Salvation is not about getting out ahead of the rest. Much of it is about learning to say we again, standing on the common ground of our need for God’s mercy, standing in the company of sinners, knowing that Jesus is standing with us. We all enter the kingdom of heaven, not because we deserve to be there, but because Jesus has joined us in our lonely exile to forgive our sins and bring us together in the community of forgiven sinners.

As forgiven sinners we look at others not to compare and judge and deepen our divisions, but to see one another and hold one another in solidarity and recognize one another as brothers and sisters. None of us can be proud of being saved, because it’s not our doing. It’s grace, abundant and sufficient, poured out for all—because we all need more love than we deserve.

Phil and Max—I want to tell you the end of the story, and I’m making it up, but I’m also not making it up. Phil and Max now pray together regularly, and a couple of weeks ago a woman from Chicago sat with them. “Guys,” she said, “can you teach me to pray?” And Phil said, “In the morning we say, ‘God, we thank you for the gift of this day. Help us remember who we are.’” And Max said, “At night, before we go to sleep, we say, ‘God, we thank you for the gift of this day. Forgive us when we forgot who we are.  Hold us in your grace in the hours of the night.’” And the professor from Switzerland said, “You always say, we, huh?” And they answered, “Always. We’re in this together; all of us.”

[1] See Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace? (Zondervan, 1997), p. 11

[2] Karl Barth, Deliverance to the Captives (Harper, 1961), p. 39



How Long?

How long, O Lord?
Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
this sorrow in my heart day and night?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

In the book of psalms we encounter voices of exuberant praise and confident teaching, as well as voices of lament and questioning. How long? Four times in Psalm 13 the question rises from the heart to the heavens, and there is no answer, only this outpouring of a longing to be remembered, noticed, heard, and answered. How long, O Lord? How long until I can come to you once again with songs of joyful praise?

We don’t know. All we do know is to let the questions rise with honesty, seeking answers, waiting for answers, knocking on heaven’s door, day and night. Prayer born of gratitude flies up like a bird, but when prayer is little more than painful longing, the night can be long, much longer than it was for those Chilean miners. And sometimes the moment when we have to put on sunglasses because the light of day is so much brighter than what our eyes have gotten used to, sometimes that moment doesn’t come.

We pray fervently that our friend will be cured of cancer and live, and the battle is fierce and long, but the moment doesn’t come and she dies, too young.

We pray for an end to violence and war, but the past has a powerful hold on the present, and the moment doesn’t come, and people young and old continue to die on battlefields, in their own homes, and in the streets of our cities.

We pray, and sometimes we wonder if perhaps we should be less bold in our prayers: lower our expectations to reduce the impact of the disappointment, only ask for patience and the strength to take whatever life throws at us? Or we stop praying altogether. If we don’t get our hopes up, perhaps we don’t fall so hard?

Jesus told the disciples a story about a judge and a widow. A widow in Jesus’ time was in a very vulnerable position. When her husband died, all his belongings became the property of his sons or brothers, and she depended entirely on them for her survival. They had certain responsibilities, but that didn’t necessarily mean they took them seriously; disputes involving widows and orphans were quite common. It was the judges’ responsibility to help resolve those disputes in the community.

Moses had charged Israel’s judges saying,

Give the members of your community a fair hearing, and judge rightly between one person and another, whether citizen or resident alien. You must not be partial in judging: hear out the small and the great alike; you shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. Deuteronomy 1:16-17

Now this widow had Moses and the prophets on her side, but the judge ignored her. He was a man without shame. Didn’t want to hear her case. Pretended she wasn’t there. Expected her to go away. Ignored her plea for justice. And she had nowhere else to go. No friends in high places, no advocate. All she had was this remarkable capacity to make a scene, and she made good use of it.

She didn’t go away. She stood outside the courtroom shouting, “Give me justice.” She knocked on his door, “Give me justice.” She caught him on the street on his way to lunch, “Give me justice.” She left messages on his answering maching, “Give me justice.” She even followed him to the golf course, shouting, “Give me justice.” She was unrelenting, untiring, insistent and shameless.

And she finally wore him down. Not that the judge suddenly discovered he had a conscience or reverence for God or respect for others, he just wanted to get her off his back. He finally did the right thing – for the wrong reasons, but still, he did the right thing. Now, Jesus said, if the worst judge you can possibly imagine will respond to a persistent widow’s plea, how much more will God grant justice to you, God’s beloved children, who pray night and day? Will God delay long in helping you?

Luke says, Jesus told us this story about our need to pray always and not to lose heart. To pray not with an eye on the clock or the calendar, but trusting in God’s desire for justice and God’s faithfulness. To pray boldly and tirelessly. To pray as if the coming of God’s reign depended on nothing but our prayers. To let our longing for righteousness and peace rise from our hearts to the heavens, asking, seeking, knocking with unrelenting persistence.

I read this great little story about the day that Mother Teresa went to visit Edward Bennett Williams, a legendary Washington attorney who was the lawyer for Frank Sinatra and Richard Nixon, among others.

Mother Teresa came to his office on a fundraising tour for an AIDS hospice. Williams was an influential member of the Knights of Malta, and she came to ask for a contribution. Before she arrived, Williams told his partner, Paul Dietrich, “AIDS is not my favorite disease,” whatever that was supposed to mean. They were looking for a way out and they rehearsed a polite refusal: they would hear her out but say no.

She came in. Little nun. Williams, the man to see. Between them, an enormous desk,immovable as a rock. She made her pitch, and Williams apologetically, but firmly, declined.

“Let us pray,” said Mother Teresa and bowed her head.

Williams looked over at Dietrich, and the two men bowed with her. When she was done, she made exactly the same appeal. Again, Williams politely declined.

Once more Mother Teresa said, “Let us pray.”

Williams looked up at the ceiling. “All right, all right,” he said, and pulled his checkbook.[1]

Parts of this story resonate with Jesus’ parable. Know what you want and go after it. Pray with the insistence of this little nun. Pray with the doggedness of this widow.

But there’s another dimension to Jesus’ story. It is quite a privilege to worry about the state of one’s prayer life while widows worry about food, housing, and affordable health care. You see, the widow in the story isn’t just an illustration  for good prayer habits, she’s also alone in her struggle for justice. She’s crying out not just to move a judge who cares nothing about God or neighbor, but to move you and me. She makes a scene to remind us that God’s reign of justice is a future we await with great longing and also a present reality whenever we allow God’s compassion and mercy to rule our actions. She needs us to pray like her, but she also needs us to pray with her, and to help her wrangle justice from corrupt human institutions.

Yes, the night of waiting can be long and we must be persistent in prayer to keep the flame of hope alive and to nourish our faith. We need prayer to remember that our dignity and the dignity of our neighbors is rooted in God’s justice, not in the countless forms of human injustice. Prayer has the power to let the priorities of God reorder the priorities of our lives. Prayer is two-way communication. Yes, we cry out and we are bold in claiming God’s promises for us and for the life of the world. And we ask how long, and we seek answers with honesty, and we knock on heaven’s door. And when we keep at it, the longing that rose from our hearts, returns.

That’s what happened to me. I prayed that little story. I sat with it and turned it round and round in my heart, and then it turned my heart around and God came to me in the widow – persistent, unrelenting, determined to get my attention, asking questions, seeking me, knocking on my door, challenging me to respond to the presence of God’s reign in Christ.

“How long will you hide your face from me,” she asked. “Look on me and answer. How long will children in this city go to sleep hungry? How long will old women cut their pills in half so they last till the end of the month? How long?”

Prayer is two-way communication. Prayer has the power to let the priorities of God reorder the priorities of our lives.

The world is changing in ways we struggle to understand and at an unprecedented pace; everything happens so fast that our souls can’t keep up. It would be tempting to seek a spiritual life that simply helps us to keep our head above water and breathe. Something to give us the strength of heart not to fall behind in the crazy rush. Something to assure us of God’s love in a world that’s going everywhere at once and nowhere. But that kind of spiritual life wouldn’t go deep enough.

We need prayers that allow us to take our needs and questions to God and that open us to God’s persistent, unrelenting, questioning presence. We need prayers that remind us that Christ has claimed us as citizens of the kingdom.


[1] Evan Thomas, The Man to See: Edward Bennett Williams (New York, NY: Touchstone, 1992) p. 390



The Region Between

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.

If you wanted to find that region on a map, you’d have to make it up. There is no region between Samaria and Galilee just like there is none between Kentucky and Tennessee. There is a line, and in the case of Samaria and Galilee, this line runs between two groups of people who haven’t been friendly with each other for generations. Some readers of Luke comment, almost apologetically, that the author isn’t very familiar with the lay of the land between Nazareth and Jerusalem. Others notice that Luke’s odd geography serves a theological purpose.

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, and there he’ll face our rejection and damnation; he is on the way to the cross where he’ll be executed, a stranger who stands outside all the lines that define human communities. Jesus is on his way to become the ultimate outsider and to bring reconciliation, and his path leads him between groups and nations with hands stretched out to either side of the boundary line. The region between is not a geographical entity, but the place of Jesus’ ministry.

By making up a region between Galilee and Samaria Luke also subtly reminds us that there are people who live in that no-man’s-land, people who belong neither here nor there and who would disappear altogether if there were cracks for them to fall through. The region between is the invisible land where invisible people live – or perhaps I should not say live, but long for life.

The region between is where Jesus encounters ten lepers. It doesn’t matter anymore what side of which border they once came from. It doesn’t matter if they used to be poor or wealthy, men or women, highly educated or illiterate, young or old, pious or irreverent, natives or aliens. It doesn’t matter who they used to be or could have been; they have a disease that isolates them completely by rendering them ritually unclean. Whoever they used to be, now they are lepers, untouchables. They have been pushed out for fear of contagion and left to wander in the region between.

Jewish law states,

Persons who have the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of their head be disheveled; and they shall cover their upper lip and cry out, “Unclean, unclean.” They shall live alone; their dwelling shall be outside the camp Leviticus 13:45-46.

These ten whose dwelling had been outside the camp for who knows how long approached Jesus, but instead of crying out, ‘Unclean, unclean,’ they shouted his name and begged, “Jesus! Have mercy on us!” What do you think it was they wanted? Something to eat? A hug? A friendly conversation? Or did they approach him seeking life?

Jesus, we read in Luke, when he saw them, said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” Jesus saw them, which is no small thing in a world where so many people and things demand attention, and yet remain invisible. Jesus saw them, and he responded to their cries with a simple command. Go, show yourselves to the priests. It was the priests’ responsibility to examine their skin in order to determine their physical health and, if all was well, to restore them to life in the community. Go, Jesus said, trust my word, show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were made clean.

The ten, after their encounter with Jesus, left the invisible land and returned to life. They were finally able to go home and kiss their spouses, hold their children, pray in the synagogue, do their work, and eat and drink with their friends. You know they came home laughing and singing, and they danced around the bonfire in which their old, torn clothes went up in flames. They were alive, they were at home.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.

Ten cried out for mercy, longing for life. Ten were made clean. But one of them saw something the other nine didn’t. One of them didn’t return to the life he once knew before he had been pushed out. He returned to Jesus, praising God with a loud voice. One of them returned to the region between and to the one who embodied God’s healing, saving, reconciling, and fulfilling presence there.

Ten cried out for mercy. Ten were made clean. Nine of them got their old lives back. One of them found new life.

He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

Again it was a Samaritan who saw what others didn’t or wouldn’t see. At the beginning of his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus told a story about a man who fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. You know the story. A priest happened to come down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Next a Levite came to the place and saw the man, and he passed by on the other side. And then a Samaritan came near, and when he saw the man, he was moved with pity. Three men saw a wounded man by the side of the road, but only one saw a human being crying out for mercy, and that one was a Samaritan.

In Luke, Jesus tells us two stories where it is an outsider who sees what those considered insiders do not see or perhaps cannot see. It is an outsider who shows the meaning of love of neighbor. It is an outsider who recognizes the meaning of Jesus.

Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Ten cried out for mercy. Ten were made clean. Nine went home and lived happily ever after. One returned and gave praise to God. One returned because in Jesus he had seen the healing, saving, reconciling, and fulfilling presence of God. It was a Samaritan who saw that God had entered the invisible land where outcasts long for life to restore wholeness and bring creation to fulfillment.

For centuries, leprosy was an incurable condition that pushed a person outside the community, often isolating them in every way imaginable. Leprosy became a metaphor for forces beyond our control that cut us off from life. Complete isolation may be difficult for some of us to imagine. But to the degree that we don’t feel fully at home in our lives, we all know what it means to dwell in the region between. It doesn’t matter if we are young or old, women or men, black or white, poor or wealthy – to the degree that we are not at one with the world and each other and ourselves, we all know what it means to wander the roads outside the camp. 

To me, the story of the ten lepers is a story about us. It is a story about our hunger for life, our need to belong,  and our hope that God hears our cries for mercy. And it is a story about God’s mercy for all and how hard it is for us to fully see what Jesus has done for us. There is a wholeness that awaits those who see in Jesus God’s mercy at work in the world and who return to him with songs of praise on their lips. And it’s not just about gratitude which leads us to humbly and joyfully receive life as a gift instead of simply taking it as a given and demanding more. The other nine, for all we know, may well have thanked God in their respective houses of worship, and every morning when they woke up and every night before they went to sleep. But the Samaritan didn’t return to Samaria but to Jesus to offer his gratitude and praise to God. He knew where to find him. It wasn’t in Jerusalem or in Samaria or in Galilee, but in the region between where God meets us to reconcile and make whole what sin divides and breaks.

“Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well,” Jesus said to the Samaritan. Your faith has saved you. Your faith has made you whole.

The Samaritan saw that the way of Jesus was the way of healing and wholeness for the whole world. The Samaritan saw that the way of Jesus didn’t introduce yet another tribe to a world already torn by hostility between tribes and peoples. The Samaritan saw that with Jesus the reign of God had come to the region between, to the invisible land where the outcasts of all camps and tribes long for life.

The way of Jesus leads to the cross, and the cross stands outside the city gates, in the region between Samaria and Galilee, between Jerusalem and Rome, between Jews and Gentiles, between us and them. There we find him, hands stretched out to either side, waiting for us to see and embrace the things that make for peace. Lord, open our eyes.

A Brief Meditation on Ministry

World Communion Sunday is a day when we are particularly attentive to something we do all the time. We Disciples are people of the table, and anytime we gather for worship, we gather around the table.

Other traditions within the church have books that allow them to speak of their particularity, a book of common prayer, a book of confessions, a book of discipline, or a catechism. We Disciples don’t have anything like that sitting on the shelf, but we find ourselves returning again and again to the table of Christ. And when we talk about our particular witness within the one church of Jesus Christ, we point to the table. More than by any particular doctrine or set of doctrines, we are people shaped by the meal we call the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, or Communion.

We can’t help but proclaim the gospel of salvation in terms of God’s hospitality, of God’s desire to heal our sinful divisions. And on this day in particular we remember that this table is not ours, not the church’s, but God’s table for all the world’s peoples.

It is a table of reconciliation, set for us right on the lines that divide us from God and from one another, and we come with joyful wonder at the wideness of God’s mercy. We come with thanksgiving for the ministry of Jesus Christ and the church’s witness around the globe. We come with deep gratitude for this tangible, inhabitable assurance of forgiveness; this solemn proclamation of the Lord’s death until he comes; this joyful celebration of God’s new creation in the midst of the old; this foretaste of the heavenly feast on earth.

On this World Communion Sunday we are particularly attentive to something else we do all the time, ministry. Angie’s ordination gives us an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be in ministry, do ministry, have a ministry, or be a minister.

Contrary to widely held public opinion ministry isn’t whatever it is ministers do. Ministry is God’s work in the world. Before it becomes something we do, ministry is God’s life-giving presence and redemptive movement in the world, and in particular God’s ministry to all humanity in Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, sings of this redemptive movement as God’s downward mobility in Christ,

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).

In the gospel according to John, the same movement is captured in the beautiful scene of the footwashing on that last evening. Jesus takes off his outer robe and ties a towel around himself. Then he gets down on his knees and washes the disciples’ feet.

The Lord is the servant, the servant is the Lord. This is how he wants to be known. His entire life and mission are characterized by this act of intimate, loving service.

Peter speaks for all of us, when he tells him that the Lord cannot do a servant’s work – and Jesus responds that this is how it must be, that we must place ourselves in his hands. To be in relationship with him we must receive him as he comes, the lowly servant embodying the love of God. And then he gets up and puts on his robe again, and he tells us to do for one another as he has done.

To do ministry is to enact the love of God through humble service. To be in ministry is to participate in the work of God in the world, in Jesus’ name. Just as God’s hospitality and service to us in Jesus Christ has changed our relationship to God and to each other, so this ministry of God has changed our relationship to the world, and our place in it. We now live to make known the God who has come to us in Jesus Christ.

Here at Vine Street, we give new disciples a sign that represents this new way of being in the world; it’s an apron. I brought one today, as a gift for Angie and a reminder for us all that ministry isn’t something some of us do, but rather something all of us participate in by virtue of our baptism. We are members of the body of Christ who continues to serve in the world, offering forgiveness, healing, and new life. Inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the church participates in Christ’s mission. All who are baptized become part of the church’s ministry, and all are given the awesome task of letting  their lives reflect the glory of God.

So why do we ordain Angie, if she’s already a minister? We ordain her to affirm God’s call to her to lead the church, to fulfill tasks that are necessary for the vitality and faithfulness of our common ministry, to equip, nurture, and guide us, and to stand over against us when necessary to remind us who we are and what our purpose is in the world.

Ordaining her doesn’t put her above us, nor does it mean that we’ve finally found somebody we can pay to relieve us of our own ministerial responsibilities.

We ordain her on behalf of the whole church of Jesus Christ, and for the sake of our one ministry in God’s world. We ordain her so she can help us become more fully who we are baptized and called to be.



Where is Pakistan?

Pakistan is far away. A flight from New York to Islamabad takes over fourteen hours. Pakistan is on the other side of the world, it is one of the many “Whoknowsistans” we can barely locate on a map. Most of us don’t know much about the country and its people, only what we hear on the news and read in the paper.

Pakistan is far away – geographically and culturally – but it is also very close. Men and women there work hard to make a living, they have dreams for the future and for their children. They love stories, music, and movies, they have memories from when they were little, they have school loans and medical bills, they pray and they read and they are busy. In so many ways, they are just like us.

These days they are particularly close to us because the rivers of Pakistan rose after heavy rains and flooded the land, and we know a thing or two about having eight feet of water in the house. We also know how good it is, amid the shock of loss, to have neighbors who open their homes and friends who bring food and strangers who help pull out the wet sheetrock and the muddy carpet.

foto: UN Development ProrammeWhat is much harder for us to imagine is the scale of this flood: nine million acres of cropland are underwater; more than twenty-one million people have been affected. Numbers like that are crucial for planning disaster response and recovery efforts, but they don’t help us get any closer to the reality of loss they represent.

Smaller numbers might help. Our friends at Church World Service tell us that in the flood-devastated areas, 0.5 million women are pregnant, and every day, 1,700 of them go into labor.

I watched footage of U.S. Marine helicopters delivering food and other supplies to remote areas, and the reporter described the landscape as “a water world dotted with islands of misery, farmsteads, villages, entire towns stranded for weeks now, some entirely abandoned, from horizon to horizon, for mile after mile, a vast inland sea, accessible only by chopper.”

What is it like to give birth on an island of misery in a vast sea stretching from horizon to horizon? I wonder if the parents’ hope is strong enough to welcome the new life with joy and thanksgiving – I hope so. 1,700 babies, every day, born on little islands that used to be barely noticable hills amid the rice paddies. The number is still difficult to imagine, but the call for neighbors is clear and bright as a bell. Food and clean water are needed, a dry blanket, a tarp or a tent, a pot for cooking, a piece of candy for the big sister – gestures that remind the parents that they are not alone, gestures that welcome these little ones into a world where love of neighbor is not just a Sunday morning word but a daily reality.

I watched the helicopters flying over the flooded land and taking supplies to villages that had been marooned for up to three weeks, surrounded by water. In one village, the huge helicopter was hovering 20 feet off the ground, unable to touch down, because there wasn’t enough dry ground. The crew was throwing sacks of flour and boxes of nutrient-rich energy bars off the loading ramp, and people ran and grabbed them as they fell to the soggy ground. They had no idea when the next drop was going to come. This was their chance. “It’s the survival of the fastest. There are winners, and there are losers,” the reporter said as the camera zoomed in on an old woman with a cane, shuffling slowly towards the site of the airdrop.

‘What makes him think of her as a loser?’ I asked myself. What makes him think that those who caught a box of supplies will sit on it, making sure they have something until the waters recede or more supplies arrive? What makes him think that they will ignore the old woman or push her aside when they open their boxes?

And then I asked myself, ‘What makes me think that they won’t?’ What makes me think that life is not about the survival of the fastest, that it is not a race of winners and losers?

I don’t really know, but I suspect that it has to do with hope; it has to do with the anticipations that shape our thinking and doing, and even our perception of the world.

I see a world of winners and losers, every day, and some say, “C’est la vie, that’s life,” but that is not life. I see a world where the winners, dressed in purple and fine linen, feast sumptuously every day, and the losers lay at the gate, sick and hungry, but that is not life.

I see a world in which God is at work and love outlasts everything, and that is life. Life is love embodied in gestures of solidarity, friendship, and kindness. Life is love reaching across all that separates us.

In Jesus’ story, the poor man at the gate has a name, Lazarus. He has a name, he has a story, and at some point he had a family. The poor man at the gate is not just a poverty statistic.

Toward the end of the report from Pakistan, the camera stopped moving and showed a man in his thirties. He looked at the flooded land and said, “The destruction is on such a scale, it will be impossible to return to normality. These are poor people, and their crops are destroyed. All their savings were invested in their crops, and now they can’t harvest them. They are left with nothing.”

The man’s name is Mohammed Sardar. Pakistan is far away, but it is also very close. He says, “They are left with nothing,” but we are close enough to say to him, “You are not alone. How can we help you?”

Then the camera showed a middle-aged woman, sitting on the ground, surrounded by children.

“What will my life be like?” she said. “I am sitting here in sadness with my children. Nobody is giving me food. I have nothing. All my time is spent in shock, with my children around me. I have no medicine, no food, no water, no sanitation.”

Her name is Naseeba Khatoon. Pakistan is on the other side of the world, but close enough for us to see her face and know her name; close enough to say to her, “You are not alone. Your life is part of our life.”

In Jesus’ story, the world is divided between winners and losers: rich man in the house, poor man at the gate. Survival of the fastest, the smartest, the ones with the better ideas or the better connections. But death brings an unexpected reversal: now the rich man is in agony, and Lazarus finds comfort in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man cries out for help, and Abraham says,

“Between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”

This little story is rather blunt in suggesting that we notice and look at others who depend on our mercy and compassion, and begin to see ourselves in their position. What if I were in his or her place? Would I suffer quietly, hoping to be noticed, or would I cry for help? What response would I expect, what response would surprise me? And now that I’ve noticed their suffering and begun to see myself in their place, how do I live? How do I reach across that which divides us and prepare the way for divine love to restore wholeness?

This little story is also rather blunt in pointing out that our time to reach out in such a manner is limited – we have a lifetime to practice mercy and compassion, but we only have a lifetime. We have a lifetime to build bridges across the great chasm, to pass from here to there and to cross from there to here. Lazarus, Naseeba, and Mohammed need to know that they are not alone, that they are not cut off from life. They have crossed from there to here, for the sake of life, and with us they yearn for a world that is no longer divided into winners and losers. With us they yearn for life that is shared.

Jesus’ story isn’t opium for the poor at the gate, teaching them to remain quiet in their suffering and await the comforts of having their souls rocked in the bosom of Abraham. Jesus tells this story to people who are tempted to confuse wealth – and the power and comforts that go with it – with life. I don’t dress in purple and fine linen, I don’t party every day, and I certainly don’t step over poor people on my way to work in the morning or when I go home at night. I can’t identify with the rich man in the story, but I can easily identify with one of his five siblings: I need every reminder I can get from Moses and the prophets and the one who rose from the dead that Lazarus, Naseeba, and Mohammed need me as much as I need them for life to be whole and fulfilled.

And Moses says, Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor (Deuteronomy 15:7).

And Isaiah says, Share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house (Isaiah 58:7).

And Jesus says, You cannot serve God and wealth (Luke 16:13).

I need every reminder I can get.

Poverty, hunger, and homelessness are complex issues – but lying at the gate is not a bunch of issues. It is always a human being with a name; a person with dreams and needs.

Jesus doesn’t call us to solve the world’s problems. Jesus calls us to trust the promises of God rather than the possibilities of wealth. Jesus calls us to walk the path of compassion where we discover just how close Pakistan is.

For more information how you can support flood relief in Pakistan, visit Week of Compassion.

Click here to make your secure online donation.



A Fire in the World

You would think that 99% is a pretty amazing number as far as righteousness goes. Righteousness just shy of 100% is more than most of us can grasp or even imagine. And yet, steady and widespread righteousness doesn’t cause the kind of joy in heaven that repentance does. For when one repents, when one is found, the angels sing and the saints clap their hands. Jesus reminds us that God’s concern and vision are global, but in the vast stretches of time and space every single person matters, and 99 is still one shy of fullness. Life is not complete until all are at home, until the very last one has been found, and wholeness has been restored.

You know the angels were sitting on the edge of their seats these last few days, holding their breath. They were looking down from heaven on a little church in Gainesville, wondering what on earth had gotten into Terry Jones and his little flock.

This past week we have been praying for the victims and survivors of the San Bruno explosion, the devestating blazes that swept across Detroit, and the wildfires in the Colorado foothills. But you don’t need a leaky gas line to cause an explosion, or lightning to start a blaze. Some of the most destructive fires don’t begin when the match is lit. They begin with words. “How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire,” we read in James 3:5-6, and we know it is true. The tongue is a fire. It begins with inflammatory words coming across the radio or tv, and you won’t have to wait long until some fool thinks it’s OK to pour gasoline over construction equipment and set it on fire, just because it is being used for building a house of prayer for Muslims.

Yesterday we remembered those who died in the attacks of September 11. We know the fires in the Pentagon and the World Trade Center weren’t started when the jets hit the buildings. Incendiary speech lit a fire of angry, violent rectitude in the hearts of men who became mass murderers. The tongue is a fire.

Who would have thought that one preacher whom barely anybody knew just weeks ago, would set the agenda for the international media for days? Who would have thought that one man with fear and anger in his heart would keep everybody on high alert, from the White House to the Department of Defense, and from the Vatican to the most remote village in Afghanistan? What was he thinking? What kind of justice did he imagine in his heart when, back in July, he sent a message declaring September 11, 2010 International Burn a Koran Day? The tongue is a fire.

I get nervous when I hear inflammatory speech. I get very nervous. In Germany, on May 10, 1933, only weeks after the Nazis had come to power, large piles of wood were erected in town squares and other prominent places across the nation. And when night fell, they were turned into pyres. In what was called an “action against the un-German spirit,” books that did not meet Nazi standards of purity and truth, were thrown into the fire. And it wasn’t just small groups of uneducated, misguided individuals who participated; professors, students, and even librarians cheered as they tossed into the flames the works of Kurt Tucholsky and Bert Brecht, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, and scores of other authors who didn’t fit the Nazi vision of culture.

It didn’t take long, and the book burners turned to Torah scrolls.

And, Lord have mercy, soon the book burners fired up the ovens in Auschwitz.

I cannot act surprised when inflammatory speech starts fires. It has happened in Germany and all over Europe, it has happened in Rwanda and Darfur, it has happened in Kosovo, it has happened too many times. The tongue is a fire, and for the sake of life and justice and all that is holy and sacred, whether we are Christians, or Jews, or Muslims, or Atheists, we must learn to bridle our tongues and listen with great care. We must learn to heed the call to cease fire.

You know the angels have been holding their breath these last few days, but there is no greater joy in heaven than what erupted yesterday, when Terry Jones said, “We have decided to cancel the burning.” Thanks be to God.

I’ve been reading Psalm 14 these last few days.

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds.

I’ve been reading Psalm 14, and I’ve been saying to myself, “There are plenty of fools who say in their hearts, ‘There is a God’ and do abominable deeds.” There’s no lack of foolishness dressed in religious garb. Religious conviction doesn’t necessarily translate into wisdom and goodness; we know how easily it can turn into hatred and terrible violence.

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds.

These lines weren’t written for talk radio to give some fool license to make fun of people who don’t believe that God exists. This psalm was spoken, written down, and passed on from generation to generation, to give voice to our fear, to give voice to our hope. Over the centuries, the words have soaked up tears and questions and daring faith.

It begins with the voice of one who has looked around and seen little light, only corruption and abuse. It is the voice of one who struggles to understand the injustice and brutality among human beings. What are they thinking?

Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread?

Their violence denies the reality of the Lord, the God who freed the Hebrew slaves. Their corruption and oppression denies the reality of the God who established covenants so that life would flourish, and who sent prophets so that justice might roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream (Amos 5:24). Clearly, they no longer recognize God as God. Clearly, they assume that they will not be held accountable for their actions. The wicked do abominable deeds, and not only do they get away with it, they do quite well and prosper. Listen to the same voice from another psalm:

Their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not plagued like other people. Pride is their necklace and violence their dress, and their eyes swell out with fatness. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression (Psalm 73:4-8).

Clearly they imagine that there is no one who notices or cares. Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God” and they speak and act as they please, laughing all the way.

The voice of one who suffers in such a world of almost complete unrighteousness, where there is no one who does good, no, not one – the voice of the psalm now leads us into a long silence.

What if God is indeed far away?

What if God is not interested, or distracted, or unavailable or powerless in the face of the wicked and their defiance?

What if they get away with it and that’s the end of the story?

What if they do terrible things and the world just turns?

This long silence is where each of us has to find the courage to continue to lament and pray and hope with the voice we encounter in the psalm. This long silence is the moment when the angels in heaven are holding their breath, because every single person matters. There is no one who does good, no, not one, the voice cries, but unrighteousness is not complete unless we turn to it or succumb to it. And every time one of us turns to the righteousness of God, the angels sing.

The voice in the psalm dares to claim that God is not absent; that God is with the company of the righteous, and that the Lord is a refuge for the poor. God is not far away but present with the abused and the oppressed. That is the testimony of a voice that for centuries has soaked up tears and questions and daring faith in dark times. There is no proof that faith is legitimate in the darkness we see around us and within. There is no proof that trust in the promises of God and the life that is shaped by it can prevail over against the powers that sow hatred and death. There is no proof, only the testimony of those who have gone before us, proclaiming God’s faithfulness while yearning for the day of fulfillment. There is no proof, only witnesses.

We trust and proclaim that in Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

He embraced our life’s deep brokenness, and we trust that his embrace is God’s embrace.

He welcomed sinners and ate with them, and his hospitality is God’s hospitality.

He himself was devoured like bread and he said, “Forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). And his forgiveness is God’s forgiveness.

The life of Jesus, the life of this witness, his death on the cross, and his resurrection speak to us of God’s faithfulness to the end. Because of Jesus we find the courage to believe and pray and hope, as well as the courage to serve and work. Jesus has lit a fire in the world, a fire of love and mercy, and God helping us, we will do what we can to fan its flames.

Growth Strategy

Labor Day weekend. This is the time when we cultivate once again our tribal roots. We are Dores and Volunteers. Titans and Saints. Royals and Burros. Forgive me if I didn’t mention your particular tribe. And our allegiances aren’t limited to sports. We are Sam Adams and Bud Light. Chevy and Ford. Mac and PC. Blackberry and iPhone. Explorer and Firefox. Coke and Pepsi. Hershey and Godiva. Again, please forgive me if I didn’t mention your particular tribe.

We wear carefully chosen team colors and logos, and everything from our footwear to our hair product and the color of our wrist bands projects who we are or how we want to be seen. We drive cars that say, “I am successful” and carry water bottles that say, “I am cool.” Every purchase we make is an identity statement, and who we are, it seems, is a carefully created composite of our consumer choices.

Historically speaking, this is a rather recent development. For hundreds of generations of human life, a person’s identity was defined solely by their birth into a particular family and ethnic group. You were a Capulet or a Montague, a Hatfield or a McCoy. The best you could do with your life was to bring honor rather than shame to your family name.

Speaking in today’s terms of consumer choice, we could say that Jesus had the potential to become a very successful brand. He had more followers on Twitter than Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. People wanted to be close to him, see and hear him in person, touch him. Healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and telling kingdom stories was a phenomenal combination that attracted large crowds and met real needs.

But apparently Jesus hadn’t talked to a single marketing expert or social media consultant. He turned to the crowd, and with less than 160 characters, he sent the most disturbing message of the day, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Not exactly what you would call an invitation to discipleship, is it? Who wants to hear that? What kind of growth strategy is that?

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

The branding experts were scratching their heads. “This movement was such a promising start-up. What is he trying to do? Is he intentionally pushing people away?” Hate your family, carry the cross, and give up your stuff. If this is what it takes to be a disciple – who would ever want to be one?

To the people who are curious about his words and deeds, curious enough to consider following him, Jesus says, “Are you sure you want to do this? Have you considered the costs? Why don’t you go home and think it over?”

He says, “Hate father and mother” – and you wonder if that makes the teenager who storms upstairs shouting, “I hate you, Mom!” the ideal candidate for discipleship. He says, “Hate wife and children” – and you wonder if he is seriously looking for irresponsible dads to embody and proclaim his message of repentance and reconciliation. He says, “Hate brothers and sisters” – well, yes, sometimes, but really? This goes against everything you know about Jesus, doesn’t it? Can the same Jesus who challenges his followers to love even our enemies make hating one’s family a condition of discipleship?

Biblical scholars tell us that the word translated hate is not the emotionally charged expression it is in English. Its meaning, they say, is closer to turning away from, or detaching oneself from. To follow Jesus means to turn away from what has shaped my identity and what has been my primary source of security and purpose, and to find my new identity and purpose through Jesus.

The question for us, then, is, “What is shaping my sense of identity? What makes me who I am? What are the things that give me purpose and meaning?” Of course, our identity is shaped by our families, by our ethnic heritage and the culture in which we grew up. But when we follow Jesus, who we are begins to be determined by his relationship with us. We continue to be our mother’s son or daughter and our father’s pride and joy, we continue to be loving spouses and parents, but we grow into our new identity as brothers and sisters of Jesus. When we follow Jesus, we don’t cut the bonds of love and commitment that connect us with those closest to us, but we turn away from their exclusive hold on how we know and understand ourselves. The relationship with God we are offered through Jesus Christ becomes the primary source of our identity. We learn to say, “I am a child of God, Jesus is my brother, and I am learning to love all whom Jesus loves.”

And in learning to say and live that, much turning away from and detaching oneself from is needed, and just as much turning toward and attaching oneself to. Following Jesus is not about learning to hate, though, not ever. On the contrary, when you follow Jesus you have your life completely reoriented by divine love and toward divine love – and there simply is no room for hate.

What is required of anyone wanting to follow Jesus is a readiness to be changed deeply, a willingness to be remade in the image of Christ. What is required of you and me and anyone else wanting to be a disciple of Jesus is to be attentive to Jesus’ call above all other concerns and commitments. If you can’t turn away from being a Capulet or a Montague for Jesus’ sake, you cannot be his disciple. If you can’t imagine yourself leaving behind your identity as a Hatfield or a McCoy for Jesus’ sake, you cannot be his disciple.

The point seems to be that we are always following somebody or something, whether by choice or by chance. We grow up with ideas of who we are supposed to be, and we follow. We are surrounded by messages and images of who we could or should be, and we follow – the only question is, follow whom or what? To follow Jesus means to make all other options, all other allegiances secondary – and Jesus wants any potential follower to know that. Our relationship with God through Jesus Christ becomes the primary source of our identity.

Our culture teaches us to see ourselves as the carefully created composites of our consumer choices. In contrast, Jesus calls us to carry the cross. He calls us to a life whose moments and seasons, actions and decisions come together like a fabric, a woven cloth revealing the shape of a cross – the shape of God’s unsentimental and passionate love for the world. Jesus calls us to follow the path that weaves our lives into his and his life into ours.

To carry the cross is not about looking for some heavy burden. Carrying the cross is all about seeking the pattern and finding the rhythm of a life that has Christ at the center. We tend to think that when Jesus talks about carrying the cross he is referring to some major spiritual travail or at least significant suffering or sacrifice. But mostly it is much less dramatic.

Alan Culpepper comments,

The language of cross bearing has been corrupted by overuse. Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or trying family relationships. It is instead what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus Christ.

To carry the cross is to have our daily life shaped by our commitment to the Crucified One – wherever we are and whatever we do. Husbands and wifes, parents and children, attorneys and auto workers, software engineers and song writers, brick layers and professors – we are given countless opportunities to let our daily work reflect the love of God we know because of Jesus Christ. Labor Day weekend is a perfect reminder that discipleship is not something we do in addition to everything else we do, but the relationship that defines how we do what we do.

Now to the third of Jesus’ very challenging sayings. This one is particularly important for us to remember.

None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

We live in a culture where what we have defines who we are. The things we own allow us to project who we are or how we would like to be seen. Possessions give us security, comfort, and status, and Jesus asks, “Who would you be without all those things? Who would you be if your security, comfort, and status depended on nothing but God’s love for you?”

None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

I hear these words not as a condition, but as an invitation. Giving away everything I own doesn’t make me more of a child of God than I already am. But seeking peace and fulfillment in God alone will help me put all things in perspective: which things last and which don’t, what is important and what is not, what is worth my time and energy and what is not.

Jesus invites you and me to be attentive to his call and to let go of all things that keep us from living with God at the center of our life. And the decision to respond to his call is more than a one-time act. It is the decision to open every layer and dimension of our life to God’s presence. It is the decision to live each day as if we had been wakened by Jesus’ call. Who would you be if you lived that way?

What Do Muslims Say?

When Gallup Polls asked Americans in 2005 what they most admire about Muslim societies, the most frequent response was “nothing.” The second most frequent response was, “I don’t know.” Combined, these two answers represented 57% of Americans.

Many of us tend to conflate the mainstream Muslim majority with the beliefs and actions of extremist minorities who tend to get most of the media attention. Nevertheless, we are curious about many things:

  • Why is the Muslim world so anti-American?
  • Who are the extremists?
  • Is democracy something Muslims really want?
  • What do Muslim women say?
  • What do Muslims think about the West, or about democracy, or about extremism?

Over the course of six years, the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations – urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate.

Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think is a book based on those interviews representing 1.3 billion Muslims – more than 90% of the world's Muslim community, making this poll the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind.

What the data reveal and the authors illuminate may surprise you:

  • Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable.
  • Large majorities of Muslims would guarantee free speech if it were up to them to write a new constitution and they say religious leaders should have no direct role in drafting that constitution.
  • Muslims around the world say that what they least admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values – the same answers that Americans themselves give when asked this question.

Vine Street Christian Church invites members, friends, and neighbors to a five-week study group based on the book, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think.

We will meet on Wednesday evenings, 7pm – 8pm, starting on September 29 (October 6, 13, 20, and 27). We will read about 30 pages per week and get together to talk about what we discovered and what questions remain for us.

If this is something you would like to do, get a copy of the book from your favorite book merchant and complete the form below to let usknow you are coming. I will serve as convener of the group, and I will be glad to answer any additional questions you might have about this study opportunity.

In 2008, Charlie Rose did an interview with the authors of the study, John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed; watching it may help you decide if you want to read their book with us. Esposito is Professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University and a prolific scholar and author. Mogahed is the Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Resurrection

I finally read Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews by Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson, Yale 2008. The authors teach at Harvard; Madigan is Professor of the History of Christianity, and Levenson is the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies. I had learned a lot from Levenson's The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son and Creation and the Persistence of Evil, and I was curious about this cooperative project.

The resurrection of the body is a great theme to explore the development of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism from Second Temple Judaism. The book is very readable, and it would make a great resource for a church study group, or, better yet, a study group of Christians and Jews.

Boundless Hospitality

One of the most unpleasant characters I have ever met is fictional. The fact that I met him in a book doesn’t make him any less real or unpleasant. This person is notable for his cloying humility and obsequiousness, thin covers for his twisted ambition and greed. Words drip from his lips not like honey, but like high-fructose corn syrup. His name is Uriah Heep. Charles Dickens, in David Copperfield introduces us to this despicable man who never tires of pointing out his own ‘umbleness.

Whenever I think about what it means to be humble, Uriah Heep shows up to remind me what humility is not. But what is it?

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,” we read in the letter to the Colossians (Colossians 3:12). How do I clothe myself with humility and not just cover my arrogance with a thin layer of flimsy humility fabric?

In the book of Micah, the prophet asks (Micah 6:8), “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  How does one walk humbly? What’s the right pace? What’s the right face? Do I lower my eyes or look ahead with humble confidence, whatever that is? Humility is tricky and elusive.

Jesus has been invited to the house of a leader of the Pharisees for dinner. The other guests are watching him closely, but he is paying close attention as well to what they are doing. He notices how some guests choose the best seats, and he offers some words of wisdom:

When you’re invited to a wedding banquet, don’t walk in and sit in the place of honor. Somebody more distinguished than you may have been invited and you may be asked to move to the lower end of the table. Imagine the embarrassment. Rather choose a lowly seat, you know, one behind a column or near the kitchen entrance, and when the host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher!” You will be honored in the presence of all. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Jesus sounds a little bit like Ann Landers, doesn’t he, giving advice on how to avoid being embarrassed at a wedding reception? Before you know it, he’ll be talking about napkins and the difference between the salad fork and the dessert fork. I am reminded of conversations I have overheard this summer at our house; young boys talking, with dread in their voices, about cotillion, about Mr. and Mrs. Manners teaching girls and boys how to be ladies and gentlemen.

So is humility about saying, “Thank you, Sir” and holding the door, saying, “After you, Ma’am”? Is it about being courteous and knowing the rules of social etiquette?

We could be tempted to think of Jesus as the ultimate teacher of how to be nice, if this were the only table conversation of his we knew. But he didn’t get called a glutton and drunkard for being nice at receptions, and nobody would have called him the fellow who welcomes sinners and eats with them if humility were about social etiquette. Jesus didn’t come to offer advice, and he didn’t get crucified for teaching people how to be nice.

Is he talking about politics, then? Is he teaching strategy – how to lay low and hold back until the moment is right? His words sound very similar to the wisdom of king Solomon recorded in Proverbs, “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told ‘Come up here’ than to be put lower in the presence of the prince” (Proverbs 25:6-7). Is he telling us to curb our ambitions and to linger outside the lime light, waiting to be noticed, and when the moment has arrived, to step into the light, the envy of all the other contestants? I don’t know, that sounds a lot like Uriah Heep’s calculated self-effacement; humility as the ultimate technique of self-promotion.

What, then, does it mean to humble oneself? I suspect humility disappears the moment we make it our goal; it can only turn into false humility when we make it part of our ambition for greatness.

Let’s look at it from a different angle. Why do the guests desire the places of honor? Why are they so eager to identify and occupy the good seats? We know why: they have an image to cultivate, a position to maintain, a status to preserve. They can’t even relax once they have arrived in the places of honor, because they never stop wondering, “Am I projecting the kind of gravitas that comes with my social position? Am I being shown the kind of respect I deserve? Am I getting noticed by the people who matter?” It is as if they are cursed to live outside of themselves, constantly monitoring their performance and their place on the ladder.

Jesus isn’t talking about seating arrangements. He is talking about how we see ourselves. We want to know where we stand, how we are doing, how we measure up – always in comparison to others. We find our place in the world by competing for a better place in the pecking order. There are, after all, only so many seats at the head table, only so many seats in the front row, only so many positions at the top, and so we learn to live with constant comparison and unending competition, anxiously wondering about our place in the community.

In the ancient world, a dinner party was not just an occasion to hang out with family and friends. A dinner party gave wealthy, influential families and individuals an opportunity to stage and maintain their elite status. Getting one’s name on the guest list meant that one ‘had made it’ and had been accepted into the circle of those who mattered. Every dining room was a hall of fame, and those who didn’t have to worry daily about survival, worried about fame.

You invite me, and I invite you. You honor me, and I honor you. You introduce me to the people who can help me with my projects, and I introduce you to the people who can help you with yours. You invite my friends, and I invite yours.

That’s how it works, isn’t it? Jesus challenges the rules of the game. He grabs the dinner table and flips it over.

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, don’t invite your friends and your rich neighbors. Invite those who can’t do anything for you. Invite those who never know where their next meal will come from. Lift up the lowly. Surprise the poor, the lame, and the blind. Open the door and invite Lazarus to sit at the head of the table.

Why would anybody do that? The biggest dinner party of all is the one where God is the host. And no one gets to sit at God’s table by out-competing the others. Anyone who gets to sit at God’s table does so solely because God delights in shouting, “Friend, come on in.” When Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them, he performs the great banquet of heaven. There’s nothing we can do to get our names on the guest list, because the invitation goes out to all. Honor is neither taken nor achieved; honor is given by the host. The particular glory of life as God’s own is a gift. “Friend, come on in!”

We lift up the lowly because God has lifted us up. We surprise the poor, the lame, and the blind because God has surprised us. We open the door and invite Lazarus to sit at the head of the table because God has opened the door for us. We change our dinner rules, because Jesus has opened our eyes to see that we all have a seat of honor: we belong to the household of God.

The word invite rings out repeatedly in Jesus story of the great banquet and his words about our dinners and luncheons. The word invite rings out unceasingly in Jesus’ life because he embodies God’s invitation, “Friend, come on in.”

Your dignity, your honor, your worth are not the result of anxious striving and self-monitoring and comparing and competing. Who you are is rooted in God’s hospitality. And humility is everything that happens when you live out of that rootedness: You no longer worry about your status. You no longer live outside of yourself, worried about nothing but yourself, constantly monitoring your performance and your place on the ladder. Rooted in God’s hospitality, your attention is no longer drained by your need for recognition and affirmation; instead you become available to deliver invitations to the great banquet. And the invitations you deliver are no longer thinly veiled copies of your own agenda, but God’s word of friendship.

Isn’t that why we’re here? To be reminded of God’s mercy? To hear that voice saying, “Friend, come on in!” and realize, “You are talking to me, aren’t you?”

Isn’t that why we’re here? To forget the ladder and remember the table? To forget ourselves for a while and to remember that we are God’s own – chosen, invited, and honored? All of us rooted in God’s boundless hospitality?



Set Free from Bondage

How long does it take for a girl to bend under the weight of her life?

How long does it take for a child, a woman, or a man to become "quite unable to stand up straight"?

What are the names of the spirits that bend us out of our fully human shape?

We know that rules and customs have the power both to weigh down or to lift up. Human touch has the power to bend and bruise or to comfort and heal. Words have the power to destroy or build up.

I once sat in a circle with a group of colleagues, and in the middle of the circle, a young woman sat on a chair. One by one, we named the things that rob human beings of their dignity every day, things that shroud our identity as creatures made in the image of God.

There were baskets with shawls, and every time someone named a reality that diminishes our humanity, they placed a shawl over the young woman’s head.

The shawls were sheer and light as gossamer, but layer upon layer covered her head and shoulders, and soon she began to bend under the weight, unable to see and breathe, her own voice muffled by a pile of fabric. She disappeared, quite literally. She was no longer present as a person, but only as an invisible body, weighed down and bent by crippling spirits.

The woman who entered the synagogue that day had been crippled for eighteen years, and we don’t know how old she was. Did it begin when she was a little child or after she had turned twelve? Or when she got married or didn’t get married?

It doesn’t really matter, does it? For eighteen years she was bent over and quite unable to unbend herself. Eighteen years, bent toward the dust, virtually faceless.

Had she gotten used to looking at people out of the corner of her eye?

Could she even remember any other way of seeing the world?

Had the people around her gotten used to her being bent?

Did they take notice of her or did she always stay below their line of sight?

How long since she last soaked her face in the first sunrays of spring?

How long since she last shared a hug, feeling the warmth of another body against hers?

With her breath trapped in her bent body, how long since she last sang for joy?

Whatever the burden she had born for eighteen long years with its layers of emotional, physical, social and spiritual oppression– she was unable to unbend herself.

Jesus saw her and he called her over.

How big was the room they were in?

How many people were there?

How long did it take her to make her way through the congregation, shuffling all the way from where she was to where Jesus was sitting?

How many times did she say, “Excuse me – I’m sorry – May I?”

Or did the crowd part before her, creating a path to the one who had called her?

And Jesus, did he get up from his chair or did he get down on his knees, turning his head to see her face?

I can’t imagine him standing there and declaring above her bent body, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Everything I know about Jesus tells me that he looked into her face when he spoke to her. He also laid his hands on her. I imagine him tenderly putting her hands in his, looking into her eyes, saying, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” I see him slowly rising, and her rising with him effortlessly until she stood up straight and laughed and sang, praising God, her face shining like the sun.

Whatever names we give to crippling spirits, to the fears that oppress us, the traditions that imprison us, and the suffocating layers that keep our lives from flourishing – Jesus’ mission is to set us free and to restore life in fullness for all.

You would think that the only thing left to do for the congregation that day in the synagogue was to sing songs of praise with the woman and offer a prayer of thanksgiving. But she alone was praising God; the leader of the synagogue was indignant. His issue was with Jesus, but he addressed the crowd,

“There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.”

In the world of the story, the Sabbath wasn’t just part of the weekend. The seventh day was set aside by God for rest, and work was prohibited; it was a day of rest for men, women, and children, including servants and resident aliens, a day of rest even for farm animals. For one day every week, God’s people were to live not by the work of their hands, but solely by the gifts of God. For one day every week, God’s people were to experience the freedom of complete dependence on God.

That leader took seriously the commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.” It was fine for Jesus to study and teach, but healing was a different matter.

With regard to medical assistance, the common understanding of the sabbath commandment was that emergencies could be attended, but chronic illnesses should not be. If it’s not an emergency, wait one more day. In the leader’s mind, Jesus could have said, “Woman, come and see me tomorrow.” What’s one day after eighteen years?

But Jesus didn’t wait. That doesn’t mean he became an advocate for a more relaxed attitude toward the sabbath and for opening the day of rest for business. He wasn’t in favor of watering down sabbath observance; on the contrary: he broadened it.

Who wouldn’t untie their ox and donkey on the Sabbath in order to lead them away to give them water? Untying farm animals and leading them to the water on the Sabbath was common practice, and it was considered not only permissible but necessary for the animals’ well-being.

Jesus argued from the lesser to the greater: if we can see the need to untie a thirsty animal, how can we not see the need for a human being to be unbound and released? Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?

At the beginning of his ministry, in his hometown synagogue, Jesus read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. [The Lord] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And then he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:18-21).

Today, he said. His coming marked the beginning of the today of fulfillment. It was time for every child of Abraham to taste the sweetness of sabbath. It was time for every daughter and son of Abraham to be set free from bondage: the loosing of chains doesn’t taint the holiness of the sabbath day – no, it finally brings the sabbath peace to the bound and the bent.

The Sabbath is a day of rest, but also of promise. The Sabbath is a foretaste of that seventh day when humanity is fully at home in God’s creation and at peace. The Sabbath is day of rest for weary bodies, but also a day to immerse ourselves in God’s promise of peace and freedom for all of creation. The Sabbath is a day to stand up and raise our heads and lift up our eyes and lift every voice and sing like those from whose shoulders the yoke of oppression has been lifted – just like the woman did.

And we sing with her, even though our own lives are still weighed down with worries, cares, and fears, and the world we live in still is bent by injustice, lovelessness, and death-serving powers. We sing with her, because Jesus tenderly put her hands in his and rising, raised her to her full stature and dignity as a daughter of Abraham. We sing, because he has put our hands in his, and we trust that he will lift up all who are bent by unbending ways. With her we sing of the One who bends toward us with great tenderness and the power to make whole.

In recent weeks, the difficult conversation about the place of Muslims in the United States has produced more heat than light – there is much fear, but also ignorance, ugly prejudice, and hatred. The fact that this is an election year has only made things worse.

We must remember that words are not just words. Words have the power to tear down or to build up, to ostracize the other or to make honest encounter possible, to oppress or to set free. Words have the power to add layers to what is weighing people down, but they also have the power to remove at least some of those layers.

As followers of Jesus, we must in all things remember the call, the touch, the freeing words of Jesus and learn from him. We do that, and the conversation will change.

Summer Reading

This summer I read and enjoyed books old and new:

Great fun, if you like knowing how ideas develop and change over centuries.

A quick read that'll help you understand what philosophical background has shaped your ideas and images of eternity.

I enjoyed this one very much. Well written, broad, and with just enough depth.

Nice, but too much paper.

I got to know Garry Wills through Head and Heart: American Christianities, a book that helped me understand the religious landscape of the US and US politics. This little book on Paul is very good, and I think it would be a good one for a church book group to tackle.

Same here. Quick read, solid stuff. Great conversation starters.

I do read fiction in the summer! I can't say it was fun, but once I started it, I didn't put it down.

Even the universe is mortal. That's old news for theologians, but it still gives rise to good thinking and writing. Physicists are underrepresented, though.

So careful to the type she [nature] seems,
So careless of the single life;
...
"So careful of the type?" but no.
From scarped cliffs and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go." Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, verses LV and LVI

Southgate's book is a deep reflection on the beauty and violence of life, and what that means for our thinking about redeemed creation.

She's a good girl

Mary serves as pastor in Chicago, but she grew up in the South. A few years ago she shared her thoughts on southern hospitality. Southern women, she wrote, are Marthas and proud of it, and supper in a southern kitchen is a wonder to behold. Those who have traditional southern hospitality refined to an art never sit—they hover. At Martha’s table, plates are never allowed to go empty, and the serving dishes are passed around at least three times.

You know how it goes, “Some more iced tea? Have another yeast roll? Do try the jello salad, dear, it’s my aunt Rosie’s recipe, and the squash casserole is a favorite at every church potluck supper. It’s my grandmother’s recipe, and I never use the cheap crackers.”

The hostess keeps circling the table and shuttling between the kitchen and the dining room; she gives herself completely to serving her guests and misses all dinner conversation.

“When does the hostess eat?” Mary wonders. This remains one of the South’s eternal mysteries.[1]

Then there’s the other Martha, you know, the queen of home and garden. She has a staff of nine in the kitchen behind the scenes, a small army of very talented, invisible minions.

This Martha greets the guests at the door as they arrive; her dress is unwrinkled, her make-up perfect, and the table is already set with the fine china, spotless crystal, and immaculate, starched napkins. Everyone admires the center piece she made herself, a creative arrangement of fruits and flowers from her own garden, in a basket she wove in an art class at the Appalachian Center for Craft last fall.

Martha smiles graciously at her guests’ compliments, she sits and enjoys the appetizers with them, sips the perfectly chilled chardonnay, and with her witty remarks she keeps the table conversation going. Then wonder woman excuses herself, disappears briefly in the kitchen, and returns with delicious food, beautifully presented. Everything is effortless. Martha is the embodiment of home-making perfection and hospitality – and she haunts many of her sisters in their dreams.

Luke’s Martha doesn’t have a staff. She has a house full of guests who didn’t call to let her know they were coming. She opened the door to her home and welcomed them in. She offered them basins, filled with fresh water, and towels, so they could wash their dusty feet. And she made sure they had plenty to drink before she disappeared in the kitchen.

Jesus sat with the disciples, telling stories about the kingdom and talking about his journey to Jerusalem. It was quiet in the room, except for the sound of his voice. No one noticed that the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen was growing steadily louder, but finally Martha, who had been making all the noise to get a little attention, could no longer contain her frustration. She stood in the door, wiping her hands on her apron, and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

Martha had a sister, Mary, and Mary sat with the other disciples, also showing hospitality to Jesus, but in a way that didn’t find her sister’s approval.

In a sonnett by Gioacchino Belli, the poet imagines Martha saying a few more choice words:

“I’m tied up day and night. I’ve never complained,
but I’m getting tired – I’m always on my feet;
you can’t find this painted doll of a saint
except, of course, when there’s something to eat.”

It’s easy to sit and listen, when somebody else is doing the cooking and the laundry and the cleaning, isn’t it?

I know the feeling and you do, too, don’t you? You do something just because it needs doing, and you don’t mind doing it, parts of it you even enjoy; but then you grow resentful when you realize that nobody seems to notice, that your work is just being taken for granted.

“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

And the Lord answered, saying, “Martha, Martha,” scolding her like she was some little girl, “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

And with that, the story in Luke just ends, like a good sister/bad sister story: You, Martha, are worried and distracted. Mary is the good girl, she has chosen the better part.

In Belli’s poem, Martha doesn’t just swallow it; she snaps back,

“So says you, but I know better.
Listen, if I sat around on my salvation
the way she does, who’d keep this house together?”[2]

She has a point there, doesn’t she? Jesus taught that one does not live by bread alone (Luke 4:4), but he gratefully depended on the hospitality of many a Martha and their bread while teaching the word of God in the villages of Galilee and all the way to the city of Jerusalem.

And after Pentecost, believers gathered in homes for meals and worship, depending on the hospitality and leadership of those who opened their homes to the first congregations and to itinerant missionaries.

And today Martha is woman with a career, a wife and mother, and an Elder in the church, and everybody gladly depends on her to keep things together at home, at work, and at church.

Every time I sit with this story, sooner or later I write the same line in my notebook: Jesus needs to get into that kitchen. I like the image of all of them together, listening to Jesus and talking about the kingdom and the journey of discipleship, while peeling potatoes and chopping onions for dinner, blending flour, water, yeast and salt for the bread, setting the table, sharing the meal, attentive to each other’s needs and the needs of those not present, and eventually doing the dishes together.

Didn’t Jesus wash his disciples feet during a meal? A dish towel in his hands would make a great discipleship lesson, too.

I like the image of the church doing the things that need doing together while listening to the teachings of Jesus together. I don’t read this story as a story of sibling rivalry where Jesus takes the side of one against the other.

We know about being worried and distracted by many things, and Jesus reminds us that there is need of only one thing.What’s the one thing?

We know about working hard and giving ourselves to serving and resenting those who don’t. We know about endless expectations, and the voices that demand perfection, and schedules that make us sick. We know about being worried and distracted and way too busy, and Jesus reminds us that Mary has chosen the better part – the better part, but still only a part of the one thing necessary. What is the one thing?

Last Sunday we heard the story of the lawyer who asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He already knew the one thing necessary: Loving God with your whole being and loving your neighbor as yourself. Jesus helped him to see that life doesn’t depend on knowing but on loving, and he told us the story of the Samaritan, the story of an outsider who became a neighbor to the victim lying by the side of the road. And then Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

It’s no coincidence that the story of Martha and Mary follows the story of the lawyer and the Samaritan. The two belong together and neither is complete without the other.

The lawyer was skilled in scripture, but he had trouble hearing the word of God as a claim on his life and seeing the need for active neighborliness and self-less, generous service.

Martha knew self-less service like no other, but she was so busy doing that she had trouble listening for the word of God.

In the first story Jesus says to us, “Go and do likewise.” And in the other he says, “Stop and sit likewise.” The two together are the one thing necessary.

As love of God and love of neighbor are two and one, so are listening and doing. Doing without listening turns into empty routine or breathless busyness. Listening without doing becomes lifeless knowledge, well-informed laziness. The one thing necessary is the integration of the two, the integration of our lives in welcoming the living Christ.

Jesus doesn’t envision a community of Marys and Marthas, a church where some listen and others work, some study and others serve, or some stand around the kitchen table and work while others sit around the dining room table and chat, or some grow frustrated and resentful and others continue to pretend that somebody else will clean up the kitchen. The faithful community is one where the privilege of listening to Jesus and the privilege of serving with Jesus go hand in hand, where listening and doing do not describe a division of labor but rather a balance of being.

I still like the picture of  Mary and Martha, Jesus and the other disciples together in the kitchen, then in the dining room, then back in the kitchen, moving effortlessly from one table to the other, talking about what it means to live as God’s people in the world. It doesn’t look like anything Martha Stewart would present on her show, but it looks real. It looks like something I want to be part of, and I hope you too.

 

[1] See Mary W. Anderson, “Hospitality Theology (Living by the Word),” The Christian Century, July 1-8, 1998, p. 643

[2] From a sonnett by Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli (1791-1863), translated by Miller Williams, in: Divine Inspiration: The Life of Jesus in World Poetry, ed. by Robert Atwan, George Dardress, and Peggy Rosenthal (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 209; my emphasis



The Circle of Compassion

Our Jewish friends have a treasure of stories and legends about the great rabbinic sages of the past. Among the stories that have been passed down, Rabbi Hillel, who lived in the first century, is the one most remembered as a wise and patient teacher.

One story is about a young man at King Herod’s court who made a wager with his friends that he could make Rabbi Hillel angry. He had heard of Hillel and he wanted to see if he was really as wise and patient as everyone said. And so he went to the study house one day where Hillel was teaching a portion of the Torah.

“Rabbi, Rabbi!” he cried, interrupting the lesson, “Why do the Babylonians have round heads?”

Hillel turned to him and calmly said, “That is because their midwives are not properly trained,” and the young man left.

But the next day, he came back again and cried out in the middle of an intricate discussion of law, “Rabbi, Rabbi, why do the Egyptians have flat feet?”

And Hillel responded, “That is because they walk for miles along the marshlands of the Nile.” And with that, he returned to the discussion at hand.

But the young wasn’t ready to give up yet. He had wagered a lot of money with his friends that he could make Hillel angry, and he didn’t want to lose his bet. All night he stayed up, and finally he came up with a plan. The next day, he burst through the door of the study house, stood in front of Hillel, and started hopping up and down, saying, “Rabbi, Rabbi, can you teach me the whole of Torah while I stand on one foot?”

All of Hillel’s students looked up from the text they were reading and stared at the young man. Hopping up and down and repeating the question over and over, he looked like a stork flapping his wings and squawking. They whispered to one another, “We study the teachings of the Torah day in and day out! How can the rabbi give him an answer in just a few words?”

Rabbi Hillel remained perfectly composed. He looked straight into the young man’s eyes and said, “That which is hateful unto yourself, do it not unto your neighbor. That is the whole of Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go and learn.” [See While Standing on One Foot, p. 92-93]

People have questions and they turn to teachers for answers, and not every question is an honest request. Some questions are intended to anger or embarrass the questioned.

The lawyer in Luke’s story stands up to test Jesus. Has he also made a wager with his lawyer friends? Is he trying to shame the rabbi from Galilee by exposing a weakness in his teaching? Or does he simply want to see for himself if Jesus really has the kind of wisdom and insight people say he has?

“Rabbi,” the lawyer says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

It’s a serious question; nothing silly like round heads and flat feet. To many people it is the question, the one worth asking, and we ask it in a variety of ways:

What must I do to walk through the door to heaven?

What must I do to hear my name being called when the book of life is opened?

What must I do to live a good, fulfilling life?

How do I know that the life I’m living is the one I’m supposed to live?

It’s a serious question, not a silly one designed to embarrass the teacher.

Jesus doesn’t give the man a tract with the four steps necessary for salvation—actually, he doesn’t seem interested in giving him any answer at all. He responds with two questions. “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” Jesus points the man to the things he has studied, to the things he knows, and asks, “What is written there? What do you read there?” And the funny thing is, now it’s the lawyer who is being tested, and everybody wonders if he knows his stuff.

He does; he answers well, quoting the two great commandments from the Torah, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

“You have given the right answer,” says Jesus, and he adds, “do this, and you will live.” The good teacher knows that giving the right answer may be enough to pass the test at the end of the year, but that life depends on doing. Love of God and neighbor is the right answer, but life depends on loving, not on right answers. The lawyer knows the answer, but the distance from a well-trained mind to an eloquent tongue is so much shorter than from knowing to doing with heart and soul and strength, with hand and feet.

Love God with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself, and you will live. The lawyer knows the answer, all that’s left to do for him is live it—but we all know that giving right answers is so much easier than living them.

The lawyer apparently can’t just go and do what he knows, do the best he can, succeed and fail and try to keep the course of love; he wants to stand there and debate how complex and complicated things really are, and that loving obedience is probably too simple an answer. “Who is my neighbor?” he asks.

Again Jesus doesn’t give him an answer; he tells him a story, a story we have heard so many times, it doesn’t really do much for us anymore, does it? O yeah, The Good Samaritan we say with a yawn. But the lawyer hears for the first time about the poor fellow on the road to Jericho who fell into the hand of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and left him half dead.

The lawyer can relate to the priest and Levite, religious experts who know the law and its application to specific cases. He knows how their minds work at the sight of a bloodied body lying by the road.

O my, that’s a naked man over there. Is he dead? What am I to do now? The law demands that I help those in need and show love to my  neighbor. If he had clothes on I’d be able to tell where he’s from. How am I supposed to know if he’s a fellow Jew? If he were conscious and calling for help, I could tell from his accent where he belongs. What if he’s dead? I can’t be expected to touch a corpse; I’d have to go through all these lengthy cleansing rituals afterward, and that is such an inconvenience. What if the thugs are still around?

The lawyer is right, the desire to obey God’s commandments can make life complicated and inconvenient. And not just that. Scripture can be used not only to challenge our attitudes and actions, but also to justify them. Scripture was quoted to justify slavery, bloody crusades, and the persecution of minorities, and in current debates around sexuality and ordination or marriage scripture is being quoted by all sides all the time.

“What is written?” sounds like a simple question, but the second question probes deeper, “What do you read there?”

How do I interpret what is written? What lenses do I wear when I read the ancient scriptures? Am I searching for proof texts to bolster my position and confirm what I already know? Am I fine-tuning my interpretive skills in order to boil it all down to the minimum requirements? Am I looking for ways to get away with what I’m doing?

Knowledge of the law is power, and even the law of God has loop holes that allow the well-informed to justify all sorts of dubious actions. You need reasons for seeing a naked man bleeding by the side of the road and passing by on the other side, reasons that will not crumble under rabbinical scrutiny? No problem, you couldn’t tell if he was a fellow Jew, if he really qualified as a neighbor.

So far the lawyer has been enjoying the story; this highway robbery is an interesting case. He also knows the laws of story-telling; he knows that there will be a third character who will bring the resolution. Who will be the hero?

The priest and the Levite passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

A Samaritan? The lawyer is shocked; repulsed may not be too strong a word.

Samaritans don’t know the law! They have bad bloodlines, their holy texts are insufficient, they have the wrong theology and the wrong temple. Samaritans are a bunch of dimwitted half-breeds!

But Jesus finishes his story. He describes in great detail the righteous actions of the despised and hated alien, how he was moved with compassion and went to the man, bandaged his wounds, put him on his animal, took him to an inn, and even paid the inn keeper to take care of the man.

Again the lawyer doesn’t get an answer from Jesus, but another question, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

“The one who showed him mercy.”

And Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”

Learn from the despised and hated foreigner the meaning of love of neighbor. Don’t look for answers that will help you build a wall around yourself within which your religious obligation for loving applies. You say, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ and you are asking, ‘What are the limits of my responsibility?’ You ask, ‘Who is my neighbor?’and your question implies that there is a line beyond which the commandment no longer applies, that the law puts you in the middle of a circle and that somehow you can determine how far to push the boundaries of your obligation beyond yourself: is it your family, your friends, your tribe, your nation, your faith community, your generation?

Jesus teaches me that, yes, there is a circle, but it is not defined by me and my interpretation of who is neighbor. It is defined by the other whose need calls forth a neighbor’s loving response.

The Samaritan’s compassionate response is the answer to a question that doesn’t get asked nearly enough, "What must I do to be a neighbor to the person whose need I see?"

The General's Slave Girl

The story of Naaman is great dramatic material just waiting to be put on stage; it has colorful characters, vivid contrasts, and a surprise ending.

There’s Naaman, the great warrior, commander of the Aramean army; a man who has made a name for himself in many victorious battles.

There are two kings, one with a great deal of power thanks to his fine general, the other with very little power thanks to that same general.

The list of characters continues with Elisha, the man of God, a bit of a wild man like his mentor Elijah.

There’s Naaman’s wife; her role is crucial for the plot development but she doesn’t have a speaking part. We don’t know her by name, only as Naaman’s wife, always ready to play in a supporting role.

There are several slaves and servants who remain nameless as well, but without them, there would be no story. Without the anonymous slave girl who has compassion on her master, there would be no cure, no happy ending. Whoever writes the score for the movie, Naaman of Aram, needs to make sure that the theme, the melody line that ties everything together is introduced when her face first appears. She is the one whose compassion opens a window in a hopeless situation, and while we may never know her name, we will always remember the melody of grace she embodies.

The first scene opens with Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, a great man in high favor with his master. This is an important man, a four-star general, highly decorated, somebody who knows the battlefield as well as the high art of talking to the press without stepping out of bounds. We are looking at a man of great accomplishments and considerable power, when the story takes an unexpected turn: this hero of many battles, this officer of superior strategic skill, used to being in charge, this man has a secret. No, he didn’t take bribes or tell his staff he was hiking the Appalachian trail. Hidden under layers of shiny armor and fine, expensive clothes is a terrible truth: the general has been rendered helpless by a disease that is blind to power, wealth and status. Underneath the surface of his public persona he’s just a suffering human being.

Now the second character enters the stage. She is a slave, a young foreign girl he brought home from one of their raids into Israel. She is as small as Naaman is big. She is an outsider as much as Naaman is an insider. Everything he is, she is not. She is not at home, nor is she free to go home. Her life is in his hands. She is property.

But she knows the one thing that the general on his many raids into Israel didn’t learn: she knows where hope and wholeness can be found. “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria,” she tells her mistress, “he would cure him of his leprosy.” Who knows why she cares about the man who carried her far away from her home, her family and her people? Who knows why she doesn’t act strategically and propose a deal to secure her freedom in exchange for the information? Who knows how she is able to see only a suffering human being and show compassion?

Naaman is desperate enough to listen to a slave girl. He goes to his lord to tell him what she said, and the king of Aram assumes that if there is any healing power in Israel it has to be at the king’s disposal. He gives his general a letter for the king of Israel, and Naaman departs with chests of gold and silver and bundles of priceless garments.

The king of Israel reads the memo from his powerful neighbor, and tearing his clothes he cries out, “Am I God, to give life or death that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?” It is always good for a king to remember that he is not God, but what can he do when his well-armed neighbor tells him, “This is what I want, you make it happen,” asking for the impossible? Now the king of Israel is about as desperate as the general from Aram.

Enter Elisha, the man of God. He sends word to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” With that, the king drops out of the picture, and Naaman and his chariots and horses and gifts of gold and silver head to Elisha’s house.

In the next scene, the contrast is again stark. On one side, Elisha’s little house, made from mud bricks, a hole in the wall for a window, and on the other side there is Naaman with his entourage and his caravan of camels and horses carrying everything a superpower has to offer. For a moment the action just stops; the general is waiting, and you can tell he’s not used to waiting.

And Elisha doesn’t even come out of his house. He sends somebody with a message for the general, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.”

Well, Naaman isn’t used to this. He is somebody. He is accustomed to speaking with the king’s inner circle, not the receptionist. Who does this prophet think he is?

“I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy.” Doesn’t the esteemed general of the king of Aram deserve a personal audience with the prophet rather than some secondhand, servant-delivered prescription? And what kind of prescription is this, “wash in the Jordan seven times”? Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? I didn’t come all this way to wash in some river.

In a rage, the commander turns and goes away, angry enough to start another raid.

Now his servants approach him. They know how to speak to their master; years of experience have taught them how to reintroduce some reason into situations where arrogance and wounded pride have ratcheted up tensions. “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more when all he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean?’”

He listens to their counsel. He gets off his horse, goes down to the river, and he steps into the water, not just knee-deep, he goes all the way down, immersing himself seven times according to the word of the man of God. And when he emerges from the water that seventh time, his skin is smooth and flawless like the skin of a young boy, and all is well for Naaman.

He was so sure he knew what he needed, he almost refused God’s gift of healing and wholeness. Almost, but God has servants who help move the story forward to its joyful conclusion. The word of hope comes from a complete outsider, a slave girl who dares to believe that the God of Israel desires life in fullness not just for her people, but for all. The wise counsel comes from servants who find a way around their master’s wounded pride and help him come down to the level of our shared humanity and trust in God’s word. It is the servants that move the story forward, not kings and armies.

Naaman made a name for himself in the kingdom of Aram, but in the kingdom of God he is remembered together with the slave girl whose faith and compassion opened a window for the power of God to be revealed. The path to wholeness crosses borders and makes unexpected turns, and it takes us all to the place where we listen for and dare to trust the word of God, not just knee-deep.

When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath. He read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and preached about good news to the poor and release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and all were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. But then he talked about the days of Elijah, when there was a severe famine over all the land. There were many widows in Israel, yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow who lived across the border, in Sidon.

They didn’t like where that proclamation was going. Then he talked about how many lepers there were in Israel in the time of Elisha, and how non of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.

He talked about the path of wholeness crossing borders and including the ones we habitually exclude, and they were ready to hurl him off the cliff.

The path to wholeness crosses borders and makes unexpected turns, and it takes us all to the place where we listen for and dare to trust the word of God, not just knee-deep. How long will it take to heal our prejudices and jealousies, our broken hopes and promises? About as long as it takes for a Syrian general to listen to an Israeli slave girl. About as long as it takes for a mighty man to get off of his horse and into the water of a river he’s never heard of. About as long as it takes you and me to realize that the path to wholeness is not ours but God’s.

Today we celebrate Independence Day and we hum the tunes of John Philip Sousa with pride and gratitude for the vision of freedom and justice, and the rule of law.

Today is also Sunday, and on Sunday we learn to hum the melody line we hear in the compassion of a slave girl and in the faithfulness of Jesus. I pray that we hum it until we know it by heart and sing all our songs to its simple, beautiful tune.



Right Obedience

The old prophet had been told that among the final tasks of his career as a prophet of the Lord God was to find and train his replacement. He was to look for a man named Elisha son of Shaphat and anoint him prophet in his place. When he found the young man, he didn’t anoint him right away. He passed by him and threw his mantle over him; it was like a test to see if this young fellow was the right man for the job. Sure enough, he came running after the old prophet, leaving his oxen in the middle of the field. “Let me kiss my father and my mother,” he said, “and then I will follow you.”

That’s a reasonable request, wouldn’t you agree? Kiss your mom and dad good-bye before you leave for who knows where, not knowing how long it might take?

The old prophet, though, didn’t say, “Go ahead, no rush. I’ll be under that tree over there, waiting for you.”

No, he said, “Go, return. But understand what I have done to you.”

The young man returned to the field, killed the oxen, cut up the plow for firewood, and prepared a feast for the people. Then he set out and followed Elijah.

You have to wonder if he actually did kiss his mom and dad good-bye, and if killing and cooking the oxen was part of having a farewell picnic with the family. Or did he in fact not go back home? Did he cut up his plowing equipment and the animals solely to bring his former life to an end in order to be free to follow this urgent call? The story leaves room for us to decide for ourselves if it was OK for this prophet of the Lord to say good-bye to the family or not.

The other reading we heard this morning doesn’t leave that kind of room; it is disturbing in its clarity. Someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This call demands immediate and undivided attention.

Imagine you had to draw up a list of sacred duties that anyone, regardless of religious affiliation, had to observe – wouldn’t burying one’s parents be at or near the top of that list? We honor those who gave us life, and burying their bodies is one last honor we can bestow upon them. And yet, when Jesus said to someone, “Follow me,” and the person responded, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father,” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

I’m not sure I want to proclaim a kingdom that doesn’t allow me to honor my father and mother, thus honoring the commandment to honor them, and the Giver of that commandment. This saying is so appalling I want to find a way to make it mean something different, and I suspect some of you are hoping that I find a way to dismiss these statements as out of character with the Jesus we know or think we know.

I sat with this verse for a long time, and at some point Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, came to mind. In the struggle for the throne of Thebes, her brothers killed one another on the battlefield. Creon, her uncle and the interim king, decreed that the body of one brother, Eteocles, considered the defender of the city, be buried with every honor, but that the body of the other, Polynices the traitor be left mutilated in the field, as a feast for the dogs and the birds. Whoever honored the body of Polynices would be stoned to death. Nevertheless, Antigone defied the king’s decree. She went outside the city gates under the cover of night and sprinkled a handful of dust on her brother’s body, three times, enough to fulfill the sacred duty. The king, she said, can only make laws about the city he rules, but not about the dead. In a way she said, I must obey the gods rather than any human authority, and she died for her obedience.

I first learned about Antigone as a teenager in highschool, and I remember how much I admired her courage.

I believe Jesus is talking about courage. He had set his face to go to Jerusalem. He had experienced rejection in Nazareth, but that didn’t stop him. He experienced rejection in Samaria, but he didn’t let that stop him either, or make him turn from his way to angry violence. He had set his face to go to Jerusalem, and he knew where he was going.

He knew that his single-minded obedience to God’s will wouldn’t be well-received there. He knew that his proclamation of God’s reign would lead to ultimate rejection. He was on a way that made any other commitments secondary; this path, his path made even the most sacred duties relative. Jesus himself had put his hand to the plow and he wasn’t going to look back.

And his disciples? They were stumbling along. They were arguing with each other as to which one of them was the greatest.

They were unable to cast out a demon that tormented a man’s only child, but when they saw someone else casting out demons in Jesus’ name, they tried to stop him, because – I’m quoting – “he does not follow with us.” Like they were following?

When the Samaritan village didn’t show them proper hospitality, the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” It didn’t occur to them that this kind of violence was not part of Jesus’ program. It didn’t occur to them that Jesus was on the way of the cross and that they were following him. And so, as they were going along the way, Jesus talked about the implications of that way.

“I have nowhere to lay my head, because I am rejected everywhere I go. Will you follow me? Proclaiming the kingdom of God is my life, and there is nothing, not even the most sacred duty you can imagine, that will keep me from going up to Jerusalem. Will you follow me? Home is not a place I can go back to, I have nowhere to lay my head. Home is where God is calling me; home is where God’s faithfulness, the world’s brokenness and my obedience meet. I will stay on this path for the sake of my brothers and sisters and for the sake of God’s reign on earth – will you follow with me?”

I don’t believe that Jesus was making appalling demands, but he spoke with great clarity about the path he was on. He knew that he would not die surrounded by his followers, but alone, rejected, forsaken by his friends. He also knew that he didn’t need to identify a group of followers over whom he could throw his mantle before being taken up, so they would continue his work. He didn’t need to pass on the mantle because he was the one to complete the work: he died on the cross, bearing the full weight of the world’s sin and bringing to an end the world of sin.

And God raised him from the dead, marking the first day of the new creation, making all things new and affirming the way of Jesus, the way of the cross as the way of life.

So now the Risen One continues to call us to follow him. He calls us to live as witnesses to the resurrection, as those who know that the work of our redemption has been accomplished. We are free to love without fear, because sin and death have been overcome once and for all. We are free to study and live our way into Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness, about the right use of wealth, about service and prayer and mercy, about who is neighbor and who is kin, about who deserves our obedience and who does not.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in the 1930s, the churches failed almost completely at recognizing the threat they presented; the churches neither openly rejected nor secretly resisted the Nazi reign of lies and terror. There were only very few who had the courage to obey God rather than the Führer’s perverted authority. The majority were silent, hoping for the nightmare to just go away, and trying to focus all their attention on their families or their work. The few Christians who did resist were the ones who heard the call of the Risen One to follow him and who responded with single-minded obedience.

As a teenager I admired Antigone for her courage to do what she knew to be right. I know I admired her because I wanted to be as faithful to Jesus’ call as she was to the laws of the gods of Greece. Today I wonder if we can be attentive to Jesus’ call not just as individuals but as communities, if we can practice that particular attentiveness together and find faithful responses together, or if we are so atomized and distracted that there will only be a handful who pay attention and follow the way of Jesus.

All I can say for now is that we must not dismiss too quickly the difficult sayings we deem out of character with the Jesus we think we know. The day may come for all of us when the call to follow the way of the kingdom will be so urgent that all other commitments we have made will have to become secondary. May God grant us grace to become open to the call of Christ and to understand what he has done to us.

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